Ehud Olmert
Ehud OlmertYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Saturday criticized National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and predicted that the Netanyahu government will eventually fall because of the conflict with the Palestinian Authority.

In an interview with the Arabic language Nasradio, Olmert said, "The police are under the command of Ben Gvir, and Ben Gvir is a terrorist. For a terrorist to throw stun grenades and attack demonstrators with horses, especially if he views them as leftists, traitors and anti-Israeli, that is certainly a reasonable thing."

Olmert added, "He's a hollow clown, Ben Gvir. I'm not impressed by him. He's a nobody, but when a nobody has an image of power in the existing situation, this of course affects the highest echelon of the police. But I have to tell you, you'll see at a certain point that they, too, will rise up against him".

He predicted that the heavy hand of the police against the demonstrators protesting the judicial reform will "light some kind of fire that will spread".

On the possibility of reaching an understanding with the government on the judicial reform, Olmert said, "I don't think they will reach a compromise through a normal negotiation process."

"In the end, the government will fall apart, and it will fall apart not necessarily because of the protest. The protest will affect the mood, will affect the endurance, it will affect the mental state of some people, especially the Prime Minister... [the government] will fall apart as a result of internal conflicts against the background of the heated atmosphere between the Israelis and the Palestinians," he predicted.

In this context, Olmert noted, "The provocative taunting by pogromists who feel that they have the power to what they did this week (in Huwara), and the fact that they receive the backing of both the Prime Minister and the ministers of the government, in the end the arrogance, the provocative and conspiratorial aggressiveness of these so-called ‘hilltop youth’, they are the ones who will eventually lead to what topples the government."

Olmert expressed support for Israeli Arabs joining the protest against the judicial reform, saying, "The more the Arab citizens of Israel are part of this process, the more they will also be the beneficiaries of the change that will come... I would be very happy to encounter Arab residents of Israel at the demonstrations. This is our fight and their fight and we are together in the fight in order to change the face of Israeli society."