PARIS, France — US President Donald Trump should tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “enough is enough,” a former premier told AFP, denouncing the continuation of the war against Hamas in Gaza as a “crime” and insisting a two-state solution is the only way to end the conflict.
Ehud Olmert, prime minister in 2006-2009, said in an interview in Paris that the United States has more influence on the Israeli government “than all the other powers put together” and that Trump can “make a difference.”
He said Netanyahu “failed completely” as a leader by not preventing the October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas-led terrorists that sparked the ongoing war.
Olmert said that while the international community accepted Israel’s right to self-defense after October 7, this changed when Netanyahu spurned chances to end the war in March this year and instead ramped up operations.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during the first phase of a ceasefire between January and March. But Netanyahu refused to negotiate a second phase, which would require committing to the end of the war, and military operations resumed two weeks after the first phase expired.
