Likud  Knesset Member Prof. Yuval Steinitz lambasted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Monday as "a spokesman for Meretz" at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said that the outgoing leader of the government "has a basic misunderstanding of security and the need for a minimum territorial defense in order for the IDF to operate." MK Steinitz bid him "goodbye and not 'see you later.'"

He told Prime Minister Olmert, "Your opinions are pieces of paper on which the headlines are that peace is more important than land, which is a foundation more suitable for Meretz." He charged him with wanting "to return us to the borders of Auschwitz" and with being prepared to endanger the future of the country.