"In the Name of God, Go!"

Olmert, Peretz, the Second Lebanon War. What comes to mind, a bloody fiasco that's what. And so concluded the Winograd committee which presented an interim report on the war this week.

Now the committee did largely take the view that Olmert and Peretz rushed into a war which they were ill equipped to prosecute owing to their lack of experience in such matters and should not have set such ambitious war aims such as the destruction of Hizballah and the return of the captured soldiers which were hugely demanding military goals.

Winograd is in fact rather dovish and makes suggestions such as "the government did not consider the whole range of options, including that of continuing the policy of 'containment".

Now, I personally think that particular suggestion rather feeble as "containment" was clearly not working due to Hizballah's repeated attempts to capture Israeli soldiers in the six years prior to the war and its bold and successful attempt in July 2006, not to mention the vast arsenal and army it had succeeded in building.

Nevertheless, the report does go on to damn Olmert and stated that his conduct of the war "add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence".

Of Peretz the committee stated that "The Minister of Defense did not have knowledge or experience in military, political or governmental matters. He also did not have good knowledge of the basic principles of using military force to achieve political goals".

In short, what we have is a country being run by a weak, bumbling and above all incompetent Prime Minister and defended by a Defence Minister who has no experience in defence, military doctrine or strategic thinking. This would be problematic enough in a secure country with no clear threats, enemies or hostile states and/or illegal, non-state actors living on or inside its borders. For Israel to run by such a pathetic pair of incompetents is simply dangerous.

The incredible thing is, the man refuses to go, he just will not leave like the entire country wants him to. A poll this week surveying Israeli attitudes on who they would like to see Prime Minister showed that 0%, yes that's 0%, want Olmert as PM. The audacity of the man to keep turning up to the Prime Ministers office is simply unbelievable. In the face of such public loathing he just refuses to give up on the power he so clearly loves, and demonstrates every day that he doesn't resign his contempt for the Israeli people and his love for power above his sense of duty to the people. His aides even mock the direct action of the 150,000 people who came to Tel Aviv last night (see picture - taken by yours truly on poor camera phone) by calling the mass protest of "irrelevant". The stupefying scorn Olmert and his peers have for their own people is a insult of massive preportions and tells of the moral bankruptcy of his administration.

To conclude, I would like to quote Leo Amery (who was in turn quoting Oliver Cromwell) , a British anti-appeasement Conservative politician during the 1930's and an ally of Winston Churchill who said quite neatly...

..."You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"