Right and left-wing politicians blast Olmert for his Herzliya speech

"The prime minister is cut off from his surroundings, which is why he is creating a virtual reality," MK Silvan Shalom (Likud) told Army Radio Thursday morning in response to a speech the prime minister made Wednesday night in which he declared that he would seal an agreement with the Palestinians by year's end. From the other end of the political spectrum, MK Zehava Gal-On called Olmert's statement "an attempt to divert the discussion from wartime failures and escape the Winograd report."