Gadi Taub

Retired General Amos Lapidot, former commander of Israel’s Air Force, asked on Ynet (Hebrew, no translation yet) what the root is of Israel’s current trouble.

“My answer,” he wrote, “is that the heart of the problem is the occupation and the settlement in the territories. The problem of the territories has been draining Israel’s energy for the last forty years: the billions spent there; the [internal] political tensions; the twisting of national priorities; the deterioration of administration and law enforcement; […] The occupation and the reality in the territories cause international hostility towards us, inflame hatred in Arab countries and the Muslim world at large, and increase the number of countries which become our potential enemies. […] This necessitates preparation for war on all fronts, and answers to all possible scenarios. The problem is we don’t have enough resources, because we’re wasting them on the territories…”

All the more depressing since Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu is now leading in the polls. Remember Netanyahu? He’s the former Treasury Minister who privatized everything, and the former Prime Minister who did his best to stop the Oslo Process and perpetuate Israel’s hold on the territories. This should be enough to explain why so many of the protesters calling Olmert to resign are settlers. Elections, anyone?