Ehud Olmert: May Your Fate Be As That of Gonen Segev

With the parade of disgrace following behind the political supporters of the Oslo agreement, one remembers the miserable fate of Gonen Segev. Gonen Segev was a doctor who was elected to serve as a Member of the Knesset in Rafael Eitan's right wing Tsomet party. In exchange for a cabinet position in Rabin's government he voted for the Oslo accords.

Gonen Segev never won reelection. His betrayal of Israel and his party took him on a path that led him to smuggling Ecstasy from Holland using his expired diplomatic passport from his days in the government. He was caught at the airport in 2004 with 32,000 Ecstasy tablets in boxes of M&M's and sentences to five years in jail.

Gonen Segev was only the precedent for the wave of phony right wingers who would defect from the Likud to help form Kadima, a party dedicated to the political power of those in charge. Under Sharon, Kadima stood for Sharon's massive ego and personal power. Under the weak leadership
of Ehud Olmert, Kadima stands for nothing more than an attempt by the defectors, all its Gonen Segev's to hang on to their jobs by doing whatever is expedient while letting themselves be bullied by Condoleeza Rice.

Right now Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the ultimate Gonen Segev, is racing multiple criminal investigations and indictments to the negotiating table at the Annapolis conference, hoping that he can get a chance to give away Yerushalayim before he's charged with criminal corruption. Olmert has already declared that the Knesset's approval is irrelevant to his joint declaration with Abbas. Abbas, a leader nearly as weak as Olmert, reduced to little more than the puppet of the Fatah gangs soundly beaten by Hamas and that of the United States, is hanging on to power only because no one else in Fatah wants the job and Hamas hasn't gathered enough power to overthrow him yet.

Together Olmert, who has the support of 5 percent of Israelis and Abbas who lost an election and is staying in power only because the U.S. wants him to represent the linear opposite of democracy. Abbas represents the Fatah rule of corruption while Olmert represents the corruption of Israel's socialist elite. Both Abbas and Olmert are backed by a small circle of wealthy families and clans who care more about enriching themselves than anything else.

Olmert's rule has turned Israel into the third world and has sold out Israel's security time and time again. Where Sharon at least had a plan, Olmert only has an open pocket and a crooked smile on his face. Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, fired by Sharon for refusing to go along with his Gaza Disengagement plan, that the real reason Israel did not respond to the Gaza rocket attacks was not the safety of the IDF or international diplomacy, but money.

In an article titled, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza's Coastal Waters Threaten Israel's National Security?, Yaalon writes that "the prospect of an Israeli gas purchase may have played a role in influencing the Olmert cabinet to avoid ordering a major IDF ground operation in Gaza, despite at least 1,000 rocket and mortar attacks against southern Israel since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007."

The British Gas deal would pump billions into terrorist accounts and fund a renewed Jihad against Israel. But more importantly to Olmert and his cronies, it would move money into the right pockets of his friends. It doesn't matter that children huddle in bomb shelters in Sderot. It only matters that the pals Olmert and his Peace Now wife Aliza have dinner with will profit.

Olmert is nothing more than Gonen Segev writ large. Gonen Segev given control over Israel and treated as an international player. Olmert who had already been on trial for corruption became Sharon's Mini-Me and was rewarded by becoming his successor. Our fondest hope can only be that Olmert meets the same fate as Gonen Segev and some time in the future shows up at an airport with his old expired diplomatic passport which he intended to use for the Annapolis conference and a suitcase filled with Ecstasy Tablets wearing that same crooked smile on his face.