Olmert\'s Career Barely Surviving

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert\'s political career has managed, by the skin of its teeth, to survive the recent Winograd Report, which lambasted the Israeli government and the Israeli military\'s handling of the second Lebanon War in 2006.

However, if the bereaved parents of the Israeli soldiers who died and the reservists who survived the war have anything to do with it, Olmert will soon be history.

Last week, shortly before a visibly relieved Olmert delivered his Winograd speech to the Israeli Knesset or parliament – which subsequently approved it in a non-binding symbolic vote, by a majority of 59 to 53 with one abstention – a commotion broke out as bereaved parents began screaming at Olmert.

"You are not my prime minister. I relinquish my citizenship!" shouted Elipaz Baloha, who lost his son during the fighting in the summer of 2006. Baloha was subsequently removed from the Knesset and the rest of the bereaved parents who had come to censure Olmert followed him in solidarity.

The harsh criticism directed at the Israeli Defense Forces in retired Justice Eliyahu Winograd\'s interim report, released last year, was instrumental in prompting former Israeli military chief of staff, Dan Halutz, to resign, with former defense minister, Amir Peretz, handing in his resignation shortly thereafter.

But the Israeli government\'s handling of the war was also criticized.

"We found grave faults and failings in the decision-making process and the preparatory work both in the political and military levels and the interaction between them," Winograd\'s statement read.

However, both Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak dug in their heels and announced last week that they would not resign despite a barrage of criticism aimed at them from a variety of quarters, and it was the Knesset vote that saved their political bacon, for the short term anyhow.

"Maybe Olmert believes he can ignore Winograd. He has already said he will not step down because of it. But he cannot ignore us. We will continue to petition for him to leave office. We will do whatever it takes," said Batya, who lost her son in the final week of the war.

During the last 60 hours of the war 33 Israeli soldiers lost their lives in a ground operation that has been harshly criticized by the report, reservists, and the parents.

The ground operation was ordered despite the fact that the United Nations was working on a truce between the Islamist guerillas from Hezbollah and the Jewish state.

And even after the U.N. was on the verge of a ceasefire agreement the Israeli military did not halt the operation. The final ground push into Lebanon failed to achieve anything militarily for Israel. But, it did produce a large number of casualties in a small country sensitive to losses of its citizens, and brought about destruction and carnage in southern Lebanon, which the Winograd report failed to address.

It was against this background that the group of bereaved parents formulated an alternative report that called for Olmert\'s resignation. The parents had been meeting on a weekly basis for months prior to the release of the final report.

Moshe Muskal, whose son Raphanael was killed in the battle at Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon, said that unlike the Winograd Report, the bereaved parents\' report called on the individuals cited to take responsibility.

"Our actions will also be directed against those ministers who kept silent in meetings during the war," Muskal said.

For the past year and a half, Yehoshua Meshulami has been going over the details of how his son\'s tank unit was sent into a Lebanese village in the last two days of war in July 2006.

In his opinion the unit was sent in carelessly, underprepared, and insufficiently informed about the Hezbollah guerillas who lay waiting in ambush for them. His son Amasa left behind a pregnant wife.

And the coalition of the disgruntled and dissatisfied are not prepared to leave the attacks on Olmert at that, with some threatening to take to the streets in protest.

A group of combat soldiers who fought in the war, many of whom claimed to be apolitical, said they would pressure Barak to resign and would also hold major protest events in which they would tell Olmert to go home.

One of the soldiers, Lior Dimanez, told the Israeli media he believes the large scale protests which followed in the wake of the end of the war, culminating in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, were instrumental in forcing Halutz to resign. "We will lead a large public protest," he promised.

Another group of Israeli reservists calling itself Habayta ("Go home," in Hebrew) also plan to take mass action in light of Olmert\'s refusal to resign, and kicked this off with a strongly critical letter to Olmert, signed by 50 reserve company commanders, calling on the prime minister to leave. These groups also plan a vigil outside Barak\'s apartment in north Tel Aviv.

Although an already weakened Olmert has survived to this point, his strongest political opponents among Israel\'s right wing and settler movement are bound to use this to their advantage to attack him even further. So his future survival could depend on appearing to achieve some kind of headway in peace talks with the Palestinians. But this, too, is looking increasingly unlikely.