I am responding to the letter, “Choose New Speaker on Middle East Peace,” in which the writer questions the wisdom of inviting former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to UK to speak on the Middle East.
Olmert knows intimately the diplomatic and military context of Israel and the Middle East. He served in the Golani brigade of the Israeli Defense Forces and was a military correspondent, was elected to the Knesset, held several cabinet posts, was Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993-2003, joined the centrist Kadima party in 2006, and was prime minister from 2006-09.
With such vast experience, he knows better than most the place of Israel in the Middle East and the current prospects for peace; he himself endorsed Israel’s Gaza pullout in 2005 and led Israel’s participation in the Annapolis Conference in 2007, in which Israel officially endorsed the two-state solution for the first time. Olmert represents a centrist view within Israeli political life. If we are unwilling to listen to him, we are in fact saying that we do not wish to listen to anyone from the Israeli or Jewish mainstream.
The indictment of Olmert demonstrates the accountability of every political leader in Israel’s democratic and open society. No other country in the Middle East comes close to Israel in the high standards that its legal system applies to all citizens no matter how highly placed. In our system of justice, we presume that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
Finally, if we are to condemn Olmert and Israel for possible war crimes, then we would need to condemn virtually every country engaged in war, including our own. As a sovereign nation, Israel has to make its own decisions about protecting its citizens. We must give Israel the right to defend itself.
David R. Wekstein, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiology, College of Medicine
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