Likud MK Silvan Shalom met with representatives of every Muslim country except Saudi Arabia in his three years as foreign minister, Shalom told a crowd of Likud activists in his annual holiday toast on Monday night in Ramat Gan. Shalom did not elaborate on meetings with representatives of Muslim countries like Iran, Iraq or Sudan. But he mocked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the headlines in the Hebrew press about a purported meeting with Saudi King Abdullah that Olmert denied. "If he really met the king of Saudi Arabia, it's a great accomplishment," Shalom said sarcastically. "But such meetings have to be behind the scenes. They wanted headlines to show that they are doing something. To run to tell their friends to get a headline on Rosh Hashana is not serious." Shalom lashed out at the government for its inexperience and for not appointing a state commission of inquiry to investigate the war in Lebanon. He said the Quartet's willingness to endorse a Palestinian national unity government was a significant diplomatic failure on the part of the government.
The Likud leadership candidate also did not spare criticism for incumbent Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu. Without mentioning him by name, he said the party would have to replace Netanyahu to return to power. "We have to understand why a million people left us and decided not to vote Likud," Shalom said. "They left because they thought we lost our way. The public didn't buy our message in the 2006 election. We can't run with a socioeconomic flag flown at half-mast or not at all."