Itongadol/AJN.- Former PM insinuates Netanyahu is an "idiot," Sharon was revered only after lapsing into a coma.
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert on Monday insinuated that his successor Binyamin Netanyahu was an “idiot” and that his predecessor Ariel Sharon was revered only after lapsing into a coma.
“In times of peace, even an idiotic prime minister can come out looking good,” he said during a lecture at Hebrew University on Monday.
"Of course, an idiot prime minister cannot make peace, and if he makes peace he’s not an idiot,” after the audience laughed at his veiled tongue-in-cheek reference to Netanayhu, Olmert was quick to backtrack and added, “I mean that only generally, of course. Really!”
The Prime Minister\’s office declined to respond to Olmert\’s comments.
Olmert made the reference while trying to explain the difference between a prime minister’s reputation in a time of war versus a time of peace in a lecture entitled "Media Challenges of Prime Ministers in Times of War and Terror."
He spoke as Sharon’s medical condition, after lying unconscious, has turned critical and friends and family members fear that he is close to death.
Olmert, who took over the premiership when Sharon had a cerebral hemorrhage on January 4, 2006, acknowledged the outpouring of sympathy the public has devoted to the former prime minister.
“Today, there is a understandable sense of empathy and sympathy toward what he and his family are going through. This eight-year-long saga of his kids visiting him every day is a humanitarian story.”
His sympathy though, was undercut by his claim that the public only began to revere Sharon when he entered a coma.
“When did the [public] begin to love Sharon?” he asked. “When he went into a coma."