Olmert appeared on the program ahead of his visit to Rome this coming week. Olmert will visit Rome the day after meeting in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel during a European tour. “If Italy is prepared to have its army engaged on a daily basis against terrorist actions of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist organizations operating in Gaza,” he said in English, “this is very interesting news. I want to learn it.”
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema has said his country would be ready to participate in a United Nations-sponsored international force, something which Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said he would welcome.
“Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to sacrifice your soldiers? Are you ready to endanger your people the way we expose our people because we have no choice? If this is your policy, then we will discuss it,” promised Olmert.
The statement constituted an about-face for the Prime Minister. Less than two weeks ago he expressed his opposition to what he called a “UNIFIL 2” - a reference to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon deployed there to maintain the peace after Israel’s withdrawal from the area. Hizbullah terrorists used the six years in which UNIFIL was stationed in southern Lebanon to build a vast arsenal of weaponry, which it used to start a war with Israel this summer.
According to European Union (EU) diplomats who met with the Olmert in the last week of November, the Prime Minister was adamantly opposed to the proposal. “The situation in Gaza is so complicated you will curse me if I moved towards establishing an international force such as the one in Lebanon,” he reportedly told them.
No Israeli Prime Minister has ever agreed to such a plan. Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that deployment of international troops would only make it harder to monitor the flow of arms from Egypt into Gaza.
The idea is not new. In February 2004, then-Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom expressed absolute objections to the deployment of such a force. France floated the idea once again four months later, but it was again dismissed, as it was when it was raised again in November that same year.
Although deployment of a United Nations-backed international force was turned down, the EU was later permitted by Israel in November 2005 to place observers at the Rafiah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Israel’s own monitors withdrew on the condition that on-line cameras were mounted at the crossing and that the EU observers keep Israeli security officials posted on the traffic.
The much-hailed 70-strong EU monitoring force was short-lived, however, with the observers fleeing for their lives barely a month later as hundreds of PA police officers massed at the crossing to protest the death of one of their number who died in a shootout with a rival terrorist gang.
The observers who were responsible for monitoring the crossing for terrorist activity and enforcing the border agreement between Israel and the PA, instead waited in safety at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in Israel until the situation stabilized, later returning to their posts.
They walked off the job again in March, this time at both the Rafiah and Kerem Shalom crossings in southern Gaza, after numerous kidnappings of foreign nationals in Gaza. In June, the EU observers once again left their posts in response to security warnings received by Israeli intelligence. They returned on June 22nd at the request of the Hamas terror organization, despite some 90 warnings of terror attacks at the time, one of which was a “very high alert” regarding a possible terror attack at the Kerem Shalom crossing.
IDF Cpl Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in a cross-border raid on an army base at the Kerem Shalom border crossing just three days later, on June 25th. His whereabouts and condition remain unknown to this day.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema has said his country would be ready to participate in a United Nations-sponsored international force, something which Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said he would welcome.
“Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to sacrifice your soldiers? Are you ready to endanger your people the way we expose our people because we have no choice? If this is your policy, then we will discuss it,” promised Olmert.
The statement constituted an about-face for the Prime Minister. Less than two weeks ago he expressed his opposition to what he called a “UNIFIL 2” - a reference to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon deployed there to maintain the peace after Israel’s withdrawal from the area. Hizbullah terrorists used the six years in which UNIFIL was stationed in southern Lebanon to build a vast arsenal of weaponry, which it used to start a war with Israel this summer.
According to European Union (EU) diplomats who met with the Olmert in the last week of November, the Prime Minister was adamantly opposed to the proposal. “The situation in Gaza is so complicated you will curse me if I moved towards establishing an international force such as the one in Lebanon,” he reportedly told them.
No Israeli Prime Minister has ever agreed to such a plan. Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that deployment of international troops would only make it harder to monitor the flow of arms from Egypt into Gaza.
The idea is not new. In February 2004, then-Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom expressed absolute objections to the deployment of such a force. France floated the idea once again four months later, but it was again dismissed, as it was when it was raised again in November that same year.
Although deployment of a United Nations-backed international force was turned down, the EU was later permitted by Israel in November 2005 to place observers at the Rafiah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Israel’s own monitors withdrew on the condition that on-line cameras were mounted at the crossing and that the EU observers keep Israeli security officials posted on the traffic.
The much-hailed 70-strong EU monitoring force was short-lived, however, with the observers fleeing for their lives barely a month later as hundreds of PA police officers massed at the crossing to protest the death of one of their number who died in a shootout with a rival terrorist gang.
The observers who were responsible for monitoring the crossing for terrorist activity and enforcing the border agreement between Israel and the PA, instead waited in safety at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in Israel until the situation stabilized, later returning to their posts.
They walked off the job again in March, this time at both the Rafiah and Kerem Shalom crossings in southern Gaza, after numerous kidnappings of foreign nationals in Gaza. In June, the EU observers once again left their posts in response to security warnings received by Israeli intelligence. They returned on June 22nd at the request of the Hamas terror organization, despite some 90 warnings of terror attacks at the time, one of which was a “very high alert” regarding a possible terror attack at the Kerem Shalom crossing.
IDF Cpl Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in a cross-border raid on an army base at the Kerem Shalom border crossing just three days later, on June 25th. His whereabouts and condition remain unknown to this day.