Juan Cole: Israeli PM Ehud Olmert Claims to be Able to Order Bush Around

[Junkdrawer]

So outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was speaking in Ashkelon on Monday, and he said the most amazing thing. The USG Open Source Center translated the relevant passage from his speech, in which he claimed he had the ability to control US foreign policy and summarily over-rule the Secretary of State:

...


Olmert: "It transpired all of a sudden that a vote would be held in 10 minutes' time. I tried to find President Bush, and I was told he was attending an event in Philadelphia."

'I know that if somebody tried to find me on the phone right now, it would have to be something unusual and extraordinary for them to say: Leave it all and go to some room to talk to me. In this case, I said: I don't care, I have to talk to him right now.

He was taken off the podium and brought to a side room. I spoke with him; I told him: You can't vote for this proposal.

He said: Listen, I don't know, I didn't see, don't know what it says.

I told him: I know, and you can't vote for it!

He then instructed the secretary of state, and she did not vote for it.

It was a proposal she had put together, one she formulated, one she organized, one she maneuvered. It left her rather embarrassed, abstaining in the vote on a proposal she herself had put together. That was why the French and the Brits said she had pulled a fast one on them, she having been the one to spur them to submit the proposals." '

Olmert's account cannot be accurate as to detail. Bush was not interrupted during his speech in Philadelphia, and the speech was given many hours before the UN vote. But that kind of discrepancy is easily resolved if we want to believe that Olmert is telling the truth. When he called the White House, he may have initially gotten a staffer who said something like, Bush is away at Philadelphia for a speech. Olmert could have misunderstood the staffer to say that Bush was still giving the speech.

....

http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-claims-to-be.html

:wow:

And, in case you think this was a one-off mistranslation:

Olmert stands by his version of Rice flap

JERUSALEM: Aides say Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stands by his claim that he caused the U.S. to abstain from a U.N. resolution calling for a halt in Gaza fighting.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice negotiated the resolution. Olmert claimed earlier this week that he humiliated Rice by persuading U.S. President Bush to instruct her not to vote for it.

Rice spokesman Sean McCormack has called Olmert's claims "100-percent, totally, completely not true."

But on Wednesday, Olmert aides said the Israeli leader told the story as it happened. Olmert has also claimed that Bush broke off a speech he was giving in Philadelphia to take his call, and that the abstention embarrassed Rice.

...

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/14/news/ML-Israel-US-Rice.php

[Scurrilous]

1. Rice calls Olmert account ‘fiction’

<snip>

"Condoleezza Rice called "fiction" Ehud Olmert's claim that he persuaded President Bush to abstain from a U.N. Security Council call for a cease-fire and left the secretary of state "shamed."

"The prime minister was, I hope, quoted out of context, because the story that I read in the newspaper is fiction," Rice said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

"The president and I talked about the resolution, about the importance of allowing the council to send a signal even though the United States believed that the resolution was premature," she said. "And I had made it very clear that I thought the resolution was premature, and there were also concerns about a resolution that had Israel, a member-state of the United Nations, and Hamas, which is a terrorist organization -- you don’t ever want there to be any equating those two.

"And so we talked. We talked about abstention as a good option. And I was quite aware of the president’s call to Prime Minister Olmert. Of course, Prime Minister Olmert is not at all aware of what the president said to me. And I repeat, his rendering of this is fiction -- if, in fact, that was his rendering of it. And I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it’s not exactly what he said."

more

[Junkdrawer]

4. He embarrasses her, and she covers for him....

Now THAT'S loyalty...

[leftchick]

2. finally someone stating the obvious

Israel runs our Mid East foreign policies. What is sad is what clinton said yesterday. No change whatsoever in the near future.

:(

[burythehatchet]

5. The policy will not change and the current policy will lead to

what some may call the End Times.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Curiouser and curiouser...

PB

[spanone]

6. olmert must be a piece of work....egofuckingmaniac...