Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (2006-09) called for Israel to completely end the war, for a full exchange of hostages and prisoners, and for Egypt to mediate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In his Dec. 28 opinion piece in Haaretz, he stated:
“I believe that the time has come for Israel to express its readiness to end the fighting. Yes, end the fighting. Not a pause and not a temporary cessation of two, three or four days. An end to the hostility—period.
“At that time, Israel will need to bring back the hostages, those who are alive and those who are dead. If we wait, it won’t be long before the only ones we can bring back will be the dead, because there won’t be any living ones. A cessation of hostilities must be conditioned on the release of all the hostages, every last one of them, the soldiers and the bodies of all those who have been held by Hamas for years. All of them.
“In exchange, Israel will have no choice but to release all the Hamas prisoners it holds. If there is no other way to bring the hostages home, there is no way to avoid a swap. The obligation of the State of Israel to those of its citizens who were abducted from their homes, their bedrooms, living rooms and shelters is greater than the shame entailed in making concessions to Hamas.
“Israel must say that the end to the fighting will involve freezing the deployment of the military forces wherever they are on the day the cessation goes into effect. At the same time, Israel must say that negotiations will begin with the Palestinians on the future of the Gaza Strip, with Egypt acting as mediator.”
Of some note, Olmert is not from either a labor or “leftist” background. His parents actually were members of Irgun. He himself was in Likud from 1973 to 2006. However, after defending the illegal settlers in Gaza in 2005, he very publicly reversed position, agreeing with the government’s action of pulling the illegal settlers out of Gaza. At the time, he switched from Netanyahu’s Likud party to Kadima and was Prime Minister in 2006.
