Olmert Sticks To THEIR Guns

"There is an honest, real will on my part to give a lot and receive little in return"
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

There--he finally admitted it.

The actual context, according to the Jerusalem Post is:

Regarding his realignment plan to pull out of most of the West Bank, but to retain large settlement blocs, the prime minister told the British lawmakers, "There was no 'Zionist' reasoning here, as you might be inclined to argue. There is an honest, real will on my part to give a lot and receive little in return. This will also be done following an honest, real effort to exhaust the diplomatic process."

Which raises the questions:

1. What kind of 'Zionist' reasoning is Olmert referring to that would justify giving away large areas of territory for nothing in return?
2. Why would Olmert make such an odd statement as "There is an honest, real will on my part to give a lot and receive little in return." What is his point?
3. Taking into account just the events from Oslo to the present, what could there reasonably be left to the diplomatic process?--Exhaust the diplomatic process? It's near comotose!

But the same article reports that for Olmert, where there is "an honest, real will" there is a ...way:

An aide close to Prime Minister Olmert announced Tuesday evening that Israel had transferred 375 rifles to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazzen] a day earlier.

"Despite the tension and the firing of Kassam rockets," Olmert said earlier, "I authorized last night the transfer of arms and ammunition to Abu Mazzen to strengthen the presidential guard so he can strengthen the forces against Hamas. I did this because we are running out of time and we need to help Abu Mazzen."

That's Abbas, the guy who said back in September:

With regard to dealing with the Palestinian organizations, this is our affair. We know more and are more capable than others of dealing with our brothers.

So much for that idea.

Of course, the Palestinian Arabs are likely to use the same creativity they have in the past and find other uses for those guns.

The same creativity that Hamas demonstrated when, given Israel's offer of 50 million shekels worth of medicines, they instead demanded that Israel provide them with the cash equivalent from the tax revenues which Israel has been withholding since Hamas took over control the PA.

That would be a novel way to deal with the guns versus butter model--just take the cash.
Wikipedia gives a short description of the model as showing:

the relationship between a nation's investment in defense and civilian goods. In this model, a nation has to choose between two options when spending its finite resources. It can buy either guns or butter, or a combination of both. This can be seen as an analogy for choices between defense and civilian spending in more complex economies.

The 'Guns or Butter' idea was famed in Nazi Germany by Goering who commented on why does the country need butter when she can have guns to make her stronger.

The nation will have to decide which level of guns and butter best fulfill its needs, with its choice being partly influenced by the military spending and military stance of potential opponents.

The problem here is that we are in uncharted territory: the model describes full-fledged nations, not terrorist organizations, and not Hamas--a terrorist organization that wants to sustain its reputation as an uncorrupt organization that can look after its own people's social needs, while at the same time sustain its reputation as the leading terrorist group in the drive to destroy Israel.

It's an unfortunate sign of the times that treating terrorist organizations as if they were actual representatives of their people--whether as political leaders or as insurgents--is unquestioned.

A mistake that Olmert made (again) this week as well.

Update:

The Hashmonean emailed me a link to an article at World Net Daily: Israel's weapons
used against Jews. The headline continues: Terrorist tells WND rifles given to Abbas for 'security' employed in shooting attacks:

Weapons transferred last week by Israel to Force 17, the presidential guard units of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, will be utilized for attacks against Jews, a senior member of Force 17 told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview today.

The militant, Abu Yousuf, hinted the weapons already were used in two shooting attacks the past few days that killed one Israeli civilian and wounded another.

That is pretty damning, but there are 2 questions about the article:

1. According to the Jerusalem Post article--dated Tuesday, June 13--Olmert said the arms were delivered on Monday, June 12: yet the WND article, dated June 15, says the transfer was done last week.

2. According to the WND article, there have been 2 shooting attacks in the last few days, in which 1 Israel was killed and another wounded--yet the list of terror attacks at The Religion of Peace has the last terror attack in Israel listed as taking place on Sunday, June 11, where one Israeli was killed and 4 wounded, and that is the only shooting attack mentioned for this month.

One thing that can be agreed upon though is that there is no guarantee that weapons provided to Palestinian terrorists won't be used against Israelis.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Just one more example of "an honest, real will...to give a lot and receive little in return"

Technorati Tag: Israel and Olmert and Abbas and Guns and Butter.