Israeli TV catches Olmert "coaching" Italy's Prodi

[Jcrowley]

Israeli TV catches Olmert "coaching" Italy's Prodi
Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:34pm ET

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli pundits make much of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's powers of persuasion, but this was one bit of proof that he might well have wanted to do without.

An Israeli television station broadcast candid footage on Thursday that appeared to show Olmert, during his first official visit to Rome, coaching Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on what to say during their joint press conference.

"It is important that you emphasize the three principles of the Quartet -- that they are not negotiated (sic). They are the basis for everything," Olmert says, referring to Western demands that Hamas Islamists who run the Palestinian government soften their views before peace talks with Israel can begin.


"Please say this?" Olmert asks his nodding counterpart in English.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-12-13T223413Z_01_L13342028_RTRUKOC_0_US-ISRAEL-OLMERT-PRODI.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

[rodeodance]

1. its a stage for many

[originalpckelly]

2. What the hell is that all about?

:shrug:

Is it just me, or is that a tiny bit odd?

[Poll_Blind]

3. I dunno. I don't find it particularly odd that Olmert would be feeding him lines.

  Statements by Diasporic politicians on Israel are picked apart and then magnified by the Israeli press. BTW, this is how some politicians in the diaspora get reputations for being "anti-Israel" merely for suggesting that that Israel should be a more open and honest negotiator on issues regarding the Palestinians. For instance, look at how the Israeli newspapers are handling Kofi Annan's farewell speech. They took a sentence or two from Annans' speech and exploit it to mean that he does not support the right of return for Palestinian refugees. This may be the case, but no Israeli reporter has the baitsim to actually interview him (at least none that I've heard) specifically on the subject. The general inference is a pleasing one so they nervously leave it at that.

  The distinction of exactly which words he used is likely lost on Prodi. However, Olmert can use statements like this to show that his recent trip to Europe was "very successful". If you recall, last time Olmert made a big European tour the press was concurrently obsessed with the very public death of Huda Ghalia's family on a Gaza beach from IDF artillery shells.

  Olmert desperately needs something to help pull his administration together and the foil of Ahmadinejad's sham Holocaust symposium created exactly the opposite environment in Europe in this last trip.

  It's hard to imagine Olmert being accepted back into Likud and if Kadima voters drain back into Likud and possibly Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party, his life as an Israeli politician is effectively over. So he's doing what he can to have something he can point to as a light of "success" in a growing darkness of incompetence and scandal.

PB