Last update - 00:00 23/07/2007
Olmert: Military investment the best way to protect citizens
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday he favors investing in developing military might over reinforcing civilian homes.
"I support investing in military means that will assure that we win an armed confrontation. This carries much more relevance than reinforcing," Olmert said at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
"Scaring residents away from their homes has become a national pastime," Olmert warned.
He said that evacuating Sderot, the northern Negev town that Palestinian rocket units from Gaza have been targeting since 2004, would be "sealing the fate" of nearby towns such as Ashkelon and Ashdod.
Olmert criticized the High Court of Justice's ruling requiring the government to reinforce all schools in the northern Negev to protect them from Palestinian rocket fire by the beginning of the next school year. But Olmert said he wished to avoid a conflict with the court over the issue.
"I don't want to fight the High Court of Justice, I respect the court's authority," Olmert said. The prime minister, however, also said that "the government alone will determine priorities in the issue of reinforcement. That is what we did in the past, and what we shall do in the future."
In regard to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' scathing report on the home front during the Second Lebanon War, Olmert said: "The omissions took place over many years. We have started dealing with the issue."