Thursday, July 26, 2007

A government of cowards II

A year ago I posted A government of cowards and The pathetic leadership of Israel where I described how pathetic the government was in the handling of the war. Chaim Ramon's testimony to the Winograd commission, released today to the public, drives home this point. If you remember, all of the important votes on the war were unanimous in favor. Ramon in his testimony states that even though he opposed the ground action at the end of the war he voted for it to support the Prime Minister (see רמון לוינוגרד: לא רציתי להצביע נגד אולמרט). Imagine, Chaim Ramon votes for an action that he doesn't believe in and that he knows is going to result in the deaths of a large number of soldiers. Why? Because he wanted to support the PM. What kind of person sends soldiers to their death to show support for their friend the PM? What happened to the good of the nation? Who needs 25 ministers if they are just a rubber stamp for the Prime Minister?

The rest of his testimony is interesting as well as he decries the decision making process of the government as a whole. What is sad is that I don't see him doing anything to change it. In fact, he never even publicly stated any of this. All of this came out only because his testimony which he thought would be kept secret was publicized.

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