Israel’s Prime Minister Tells Obama to Stop Supporting Israeli Militarism

N.B. that is not an Olmert quotation. Later in the same piece:

What Olmert, who appears on the verge of indictment for fraud, did say in his “soul searching on behalf of the nation of Israel” was that he had made “mistakes” as a former right-wing hard-liner and that military power will not deliver his 60-year-old country from existential anguish. “We could contend with any of our enemies or against all our enemies combined and win,” Olmert said. “The question that I ask myself is, what happens when we win? First of all, we’d have to pay a painful price. And after we paid the price, what would we say to them? ‘Let’s talk.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01cohen.html

I hope you didn’t purposefully misquote that article just to make a stronger point. You’re better than that.

From the article:

“Imagine Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, saying this to Barack Obama:”

“Perhaps that seems unimaginable. But Olmert has already said something close to this.”

So Olmert didn’t say that, but something close to it. What you quoted was made up by the columnist for dramatic affect.

Note to self… Don’t use test surrounded by angle brackets when posting comments.

The section you quoted lies in between the two quoted statements in my comment above.

Wow, good catch guys. You’re right. I read the piece too fast; I thought those were his words. Thanks.