Olmert gets tough

Olmert is showing some backbone in an interview with The Jerusalem Post about rejecting calls for a ceasefire.

“Imagine if after a few days of the offensive we had declared a unilateral cease-fire and a rocket barrage had then hit Ashkelon” he continued. “Israel has shown restraint for years; it gave the truce a chance. We did this in full knowledge of its price only so that southerners could recover and to give them a period without the worry of a Red Color warning every minute. We told ourselves ‘let’s try it,’ but Hamas violated the truce.”

Who really knows how much he’s calling the shots at this point, though. He says the right things here while he, Livni, and Barak keep speaking of a “triumvirate” of the three of them leading the war, but it really seems that Livni and Barak are the ones making the decisions and Olmert is a mere figurehead.

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