Who's on First?

The Ynet headline reads "Olmert: Barak proves Cast Lead was worthless".

A strange yet not surprising debate took place in the Cabinet meeting on Sunday (March 8, 2009). It has been no secret here in Israel that PM Olmert and DM Barak are often in disagreement, especially now in the unfortunate aftermath of the premature ending of the operation in Gaza. Olmert and Barak, both of them trying to save face and/or save their political skins, are each blaming the other for the apparent failure of ending the operation before the objectives were achieved. [Of course, if there were no objectives.....]

Today we see that Hamas has not only re-armed but rearmed with advanced equipment, and is continuing to fire Kassams and Katushas into Israeli towns.

What was disturbing about the Cabinet argument is that everyone had a different understanding of what was going on during the War. Military Intelligence chief Major-General Amos Yadlin seemed to thing there was an agreement with Hamas, Olmert didn't think there was an agreement. Olmert, who was Prime Minister, indicated that the Defense Ministry was in charge of negotiations, but Barak was "in favor of something vague and inexplicit..." - in other words, out to lunch.

Uhm, who was in charge? Barak did say during the War that all decisions regarding the operation came from him and not Olmert, and about Olmert: "He was aware of it [war decisions] , but I don’t think he should deal with such things."

THAT is really scary. If true, we had a Prime Minister who didn't agree with what the Defense Minister was doing, and the Defense Minister saying that the Prime Minister shouldn't be dealing with the things related to the War. omg

And looking ahead, what was it about Barak's decision-making that Netanyahu seems to like, since he wanted to keep him on as Defense Minister, and would he, Netanyahu, be in charge had that happened?

If one ever doubted that our survival as a People is only due to the protection and goodness of the Almighty, one only has to look at the folly that we call leadership and know that we couldn't have survived due to any other reason!

With regard to this recent fiasco, one surely must ask the age old Abbott and Costello question..."Who's on first?"