Olmert's taking a page from Rabin

I know that it's not "pc" to tell the truth about Yitzchak Rabin. The media likes to think that his being assassinated wiped out his sins, such as the fact that he was the officer responsible for the Palmach unit which shot up the Jews on the Altelena and sank the arms which were bought and shipped to liberate the Old City of Jerusalem from the Arab forces. They want us to forget that his reaction to the massive hundreds of thousands of Jews demonstrating against his Oslo plan, when he said:

Let them spin like propellers.
and
I'm prime minister of 98%* of the people.

*I may be wrong about the exact number, but he made it clear that he represented the people who supported him and the rest of us could just "get lost." That's about the most polite way to put it.

Yes, that was the real Yitzchak Rabin.

And that's the attitude of Olmert.
PM aides downplay 'irrelevant' TA rally

Let the people be damned. I'll just go on and show I'm tougher.

That's a pretty accurate way of paraphrasing the policy.

Israeli politicians consider themselves elected dictators. That's why Sharon had no trouble firing any cabinet minister who disagreed about Disengagement.

Neither Rabin nor Sharon had such a wide spectrum of opposition. Last week's demonstration didn't have the buses coming in great numbers from YESHA. The organizers wanted to show that you don't need a kippah to be against the government.

But Olmert doesn't care. He has been holding the reins since Sharon's stroke, and he'll need to be lassoed real tight to give them up.