Israel's conservative opposition mobilizing to topple Olmert's government

Although it would seem as if Olmert had decided to give the [belated] go-ahead to the IDF to raid Lebanon and go as far as the Litani river, his acceptance of the "cease-fire" draft in the UN security council is still more or less an act of surrender. The opposition has now begun steps to rightfully bring down Olmert. From The New York Sun:

TEL AVIV,-- As Israel's premier urged his war cabinet Friday evening to accept the cease fire just passed unanimously in the Security Council, his political opposition from the right began maneuvering to bring down his government.

A former Likud foreign minister, Sylvan Shalom, told the Knesset Friday morning that the cease fire draft touted by America and France was a "document of surrender." Other Likud members told reporters Friday that should the government of Israel accept the resolution, they would begin to work to bring down the government. But concern over Mr. Olmert's preparedness to accept a cease fire was not confined to the right; the left leaning newspaper, Haaretz , issued on Friday a front page editorial headlined "Olmert must Go."

One Likud source who asked not to be named yesterday said that it would not surprise him to begin to see formal inquiries into the government of Ehud Olmert over the conduct of the war and the communications over the one month of fighting between him and his military chief of staff, General Halutz. Those communications are important because they could flesh out whether Mr. Olmert, a career politician with no military experience, asked his top general to modify more robust plans for an expanded ground invasion that to date has not materialized.

At the United Nations, both Secretary of State Rice and her French counterpart had been expressing optimism that the truce would be approved by the Israeli and Lebanese governments. Mr. Olmert has been reported by the Associated press as indicating he would recommend to the Israeli cabinet that it approve the ceasefire when it meets on Sunday.

That document calls for a combination of an international force and the Lebanese army taking sovereignty over southern Lebanon. It calls on Hezbollah to stop the rain of rockets over northern Israel and for Israel to end its offensive military operations. At the same time on Friday evening, aides to Mr. Olmert told the Associated Press that the prime minister had given final approval for an expanded ground operation despite the cease fire which Mr. Olmert was said to support.

Likud politicians in particular have seethed behind the scenes that three army divisions, comprising something on the order of 36,000 soldiers, were sent to the Galilee but have not yet been sent into a campaign in southern Lebanon. In the last two weeks, the Israelis have authorized approximately 8,000 soldiers to do town –to-town fighting along the border. The fighting, sometimes moving at the pace of house-to-house, has been slow going. In a poll from Ha'aretz this week, only 20% of Israelis think their side is winning the war.

If the fighting stops now, then Israel would have fallen short of its initial goals, set on July 12, when Hezbollah killed eight soldiers in a cross border raid and took another two hostage. At the time, Mr. Olmert pledged to get the soldiers back home, refused a prisoner swap, and vowed to degrade and disarm the Iranian proxies on his northern border. Hezbollah remains capable of shooting rockets into Israel and still holds the Israeli soldiers it captured.

Most galling to many in Likud is the fact that drafts of the United Nations resolution call for negotiations over the Shebaa Farms. The United Nations determined after Israel's 2000 withdrawal that the disputed territory was Syrian and not Lebanese. Nonetheless, Hezbollah claimed that the territory is Lebanese land and used the dispute as a pretext for arming and continuing rocket attacks on Israel.

"This is the first time in Israeli history that a piece of disputed territory may be turned over to an Arab state based on terrorist actions," a former Likud ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold said.

You'll notice that Rice and her French government counterpart do not seem to be bringing up the important subject of the two IDF soldiers who were kidnapped, nor, now that I think of it, Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in Gaza. Nor for that matter does Olmert himself seem to be concerned with rescuing them. Do their lives not count? Simply put, the Olmert government more than deserves to go if he's going to abandon innocent soldiers lives.

It's certainly telling when you see that even a newspaper as moonbatish as the UK Observer also points out that Israelis are turning against Olmert.