Moshe Phillips is the national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI, www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is earning headlines once again for his unwavering support for Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority henchmen.
On May 10, Olmert addressed an event called the “People’s Peace Summit” held in Jerusalem, which was really about shoving the agenda for a Palestinian state down the throats of Israelis. The groups behind the meeting, New Israel Fund and J Street among them, have called for a Palestinian state for decades.
At the event Olmert reportedly said: “There should be a new administration linked to the Palestinian Authority, with executive powers, that will be able to rebuild Gaza without any participation of a military terrorist organization such as Hamas.”There are many problems with Olmert’s statements. One of the most dangerous mistakes Olmert is making is spreading the lie that the Palestinian Authority wants to run Gaza without Hamas.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are partners in terror. Fatah is the dominant faction of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. The past moments of tension between the two terrorist groups reflected either internal disputes unrelated to Israel or arguments over tactics regarding Israel—not differences in their overall goals.
In Beijing in July 2024, Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government together after the Israel-Hamas war is over, and they issued a joint statement about their commitment to future meetings.
The unity pact Hamas and Abbas’s people signed in Beijing makes their true motives very clear.
Abbas has not made any new statements since Beijing, saying that he will no longer abide by his July 2024 pledge that he would work with Hamas.
Olmert must know about the Beijing joint statement; it was widely reported. So why is he ignoring the reality of what the Palestinian Authority is?
Perhaps more than any other leader in the history of the State of Israel, Olmert believes that his personal opinion of where Israel’s borders should be set is always correct.
When he portrayed himself as a hawk and advocated for the retention of all the lands liberated in 1967 and later, he joined the far left and repeatedly called for a retreat from all of those same lands. The one thing that Olmert never wavered on was his belief that his view on what to do with Judea and Samaria was the right one.
In his May 10 pitch for a PLO state, Olmert cunningly brought up Likud’s founder: “Nobody believed that Menachem Begin would make peace with Egypt.”
Begin’s opposition to a Palestinian state is very well-known and, for example, was reported in The New York Times on March 21, 1979 when he was prime minister. Begin said: “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel. It will never be divided again. … In Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, there will never be a Palestinian state.”
Negativism is what has shaped Olmert’s support for Abbas. Let’s not forget that in February 2020 Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas held a joint press conference to try to derail President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords plan and advocate for a Palestinian state. Can one imagine what additional devastation Israel would have faced on October 7 if Olmert and Abbas had succeeded in creating a Palestinian state?
Olmert is not optimistic about Israel’s future and never has been. True students of Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), Menachem Begin’s teacher, never lose hope and never stop trying to find a way to conquer the mountains that stand in the way of the Jewish People. “To die or to conquer the mount!” Jabotinsky wrote in 1932.
Jabotinsky wrote his greatest novel about the Biblical hero Samson. In the most well-known passage of the 1927 book, Samson declares: “Tell them [the Jewish People] three things in my name, and not two: they must get iron [i.e. weapons]; they must choose a king, and they must learn to laugh.”What Jabotinsky meant, in large part, by “learn to laugh” was the necessary development of confidence and optimism on a national level. Israelis may need that message now more than ever. Or do they? After all, smart Israelis know that Olmert’s lobbying for a Palestinian state will scarcely be remembered next year or ever make it into future Israeli history textbooks. A Palestinian state has no place in Israel’s future, and neither do Olmert’s defeatist ideas.
