Ehud Olmert Quotes
Emerging from embattled and humble beginnings, the Jewish state has exceeded all expectations for its success and prosperity.
Olmert, Ehud. "Address to a Joint Meeting of Congress." Congressional Record, 24 May 2006, p. H3142.
Wilson did so later: {585123}. Wilson was not the only early American President who had “Zionist” aspirations for Palestine. See John Adams quotation: {585141}.
There was a strong movement among the early religious Christian Americans to go to the Holy Land to reclaim the Kingdom God promised in the Bible. American missionaries went to the Middle East. See {585147} for another early American politicians view.
Churchill was an enthusiast for the creation of a Jewish State. See {597652}.
This is the first statement of a Jewish nation since Biblical Times.
This quotation is very surprising for most people. Reading the text alone, most of us would assume that it came from someone when the Zionist movement was fighting for a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. Or just before the UN decision in 1947 to partition Palestine. However, it came from one of our founding fathers in Colonial times. Adams was by no means the only Founding Father with this point of view. Fundamentalist Protestants have put much credence in God’s granting the area for the Jewish People—then as today.
Since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1949, there has been compulsory military service for all except the ultra-orthodox. Initially, this was only a small handful of religious scholars, but the number had swelled to almost 70,000 man of draft age who were very vocal and active about how the nation should be run and its foreign policy but never had to risk their own lives of that of their children in fighting Israel’s wars. Finally, majority sentiment became overwhelming and the exemption was removed. The Degel HaTorah party was an ultra-orthodox Jewish minor religious party whose view of a Jewish State was very similar to the ultra-orthodox Muslims who believed that holy books of their religion are the only valid laws and must supersede everything else like man-made Constitutions or laws. For them there was NO separation between church and state. For Gafni, therefore, if a court ruling or law conflicted with the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament – The Law of Moses-- it contravened the notion of a Jewish State. The vast majority of Israeli Jews believed that the civil law must trump anyone’s particular interpretation of the Law of Moses as interpreted by the ultra-orthodox or anyone else. See {636124} for another instance where Gafni complained that Israel was no longer a Jewish State.
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as the 12th Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009 and before that as a cabinet minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006. Between his first and second stints as a cabinet member, he served as mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003. After serving as PM he was sentenced to serve a prison term over convictions for accepting bribes and for obstruction of justice during his terms as mayor of Jerusalem and as trade minister.
