Olmert, Medad, Halevi and The New Republic

Yossi Klein Halevi, a former chanich of mine in Betar, is now a respected journalist and well-deservedly, I might add. He is also a filmmaker and the author of several books. (*)

On the staff of The New Republic, Yossi's article on Ehud Olmert was published this week.

He interviewed me for background and here's the relevant paragraph:-

Some old comrades are enraged at Olmert for what they perceive as an even greater betrayal of the Revisionist legacy than his support for partition. In a speech last summer to a dovish American group, the Israel Policy Forum, Olmert claimed that Israelis long for peace because "we are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies." Notes Yisrael Medad of Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center: "It's one thing to endorse partition because of demographic reasons. But to play the defeatist in the middle of a war is a repudiation of everything Revisionist Zionism always stood for."

The entire article is here (at present, subscribers only. if you want the entire article, you may ask me for it).

(*) Here's what JewsWeek wrote about him:
He's the hippest Jewish commentator on all things cultural and political vis-a-vis the Middle East. His writings in the New Republic and other publications have made him beloved by center-liberal Jews the world over. Then he went and wrote At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden, and became the uber-mensch of interfaith exploration. Think of ol' Yossi as the intellectual hottie of our day.