PM in visit to Negev: I have no bitterness toward anyone

Urges students to pursue dream of building up periphery.

By ABE SELIG
olmert knesset 224 88 (photo credit: AP)
olmert knesset 224 88
(photo credit: AP)
As Kadima members across the country cast their ballots for his successor, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in the Negev on Wednesday afternoon, where he stressed the importance of building up the area, and reiterated comments he made earlier in the week concerning the notion of "Greater Israel" as no longer viable. Speaking to a group of some 60 students at the Ayalim Student Village in Moshav Asholim, the prime minister said, "We invested our mental resources and thoughts in how to build Judea and Samaria, yet history has shown us that the State of Israel has other realistic and practical options." "The State of Israel's future won't be found in intermixing with the Palestinians," Olmert continued. "Rather, it is to be found in unpopulated regions that are desperate for our entrepreneurship and innovation." Olmert made it clear that the settlement movement he was now supporting was that of the Negev and Israel's North. While he refrained from speaking at length about the settler movement in the West Bank, he did say that efforts were made in vain there to build on land that may not be used in the future. "The State of Israel invested great energies in order to build where in retrospect it turned out the country won't be built," Olmert said. "I'm saying this carefully - I have great appreciation for the people who built their homes in those places, and in the past I supported them too." The setting was far less official than previous speaking engagements the prime minister has had over the last two years. College students - many clad in shorts and t-shirts - lay sprawled out on mats set up to resemble the floor of a Beduin tent. Olmert himself arrived in a t-shirt, looking peaceful, but pained. In answering a question from one of the college students about his plans after leaving office, Olmert touched on his personal feelings regarding the time he spent as prime minister, and his decision to step down. "My decision to resign was painful," Olmert said. "I know there are many other things I could have done that would have made this country happy. Yet I have no bitterness, no anger or rage towards anyone. I have nothing but love for the people of Israel, and I hope that love will continue to go towards good things." Olmert also touched on his work towards furthering peace agreements with the Palestinians and Syrians, saying that it would take more hard work, but those agreements would come in time, as well. Overall, the prime minister stressed the importance of the students and the work they engage in to further the building of the Negev and other peripheral areas around the country. The Ayalim organization lists over 500 students living in their various youth villages, with the aim of bettering the communities in which they live by working on grassroots social action projects. "The building-up of this terrain is the future of the land of Israel," Olmert said. "When my family came here from China in the 1930s with the dream of building a Jewish state on this land, that was much more of a fantasy than the dream you hold, and they did it. I believe you will too, and 10 years from now, your children will be here speaking about their parents dream, and how it came true."