We must hope this optimistic voice from Israel’s past is also a voice of the future

Editorial: Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister of Israel, has some blunt truths for his successor

The former prime minister, speaking exclusively to The Independent, is savagely critical of Benjamin Netanyahu (Getty)

Ehud Olmert’s is a voice from Israel’s past – but we have to hope that his is a voice of Israel’s future, too. The former prime minister, speaking exclusively to The Independent, is savagely critical of Benjamin Netanyahu, his successor, accusing him of pursuing “impossible” war aims in the conflict with Hamas in order to prolong his own survival in office.

Mr Olmert describes the Hamas attack on 7 October as “probably the greatest military defeat in the history of the state of Israel”, and holds Mr Netanyahu responsible for the intelligence failures that allowed it to happen.

But Mr Olmert argues – rightly, in our view – that the Hamas atrocities were different from the “similar surprise” of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, because “that attack was against soldiers, not civilians, and the outcome was very different when the army fought back quickly and aggressively”.