[Prime Minister's Office] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - Prime Minister Olmert told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem on Tuesday: For the last few months, Israel has shown an enormous degree of restraint. There is formally a ceasefire. This ceasefire has not been observed one day by the Palestinians. Every single day, since November when this ceasefire was adopted, we have had the full right, by normal international standards, to react with our military in order to stop these Kassam rockets from falling on the heads of people in the southern part of the country. There is a genuine chance that if all the international community joins forces and applies the necessary, restrictive measures on the economy of Iran, that it will have such an impact that, at the end of the day, it will force them to reconsider their position. Israel never pushed anyone for any extreme action. However, Israel will not hesitate and will act relentlessly everywhere, in order to remind the world of its responsibility to take the necessary measures that will stop the Iranians from moving forward on their nuclear program....There is still time to fight in a responsible, comprehensive and powerful manner, and we expect the international community to do it. What concerns us as Jews is, first and foremost, the reality in which a leader of a nation of over seventy million people can stand up openly and publicly, and threaten that he or his country will annihilate another nation, a member of the United Nations. This is totally intolerable and unacceptable. It is, first and foremost, a fundamental moral issue of the highest order.
2007-02-08 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive