Mayday

The Winograd report delivered no huge suprises yesterday. It pointed the finger at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his ill-considered rush to war in Lebanon, which led to the deaths of more than 1300 people and the loss of Israel's aura of military invincibility. Now Israel's head honcho takes responsibility for the fiasco, but as expected, still clings to power. His party is scrambling for a facesaving formula for a resignation with dignity, because the pressure on Olmert to go is immense. Amir Peretz, his defense minister may be pushed out as a sacrifice, according to latest media reports. The former army chief Dan Halutz stepped down long before the Winograd report was made public. The Israeli public finds it hard to tolerate a loser. These leaders are reviled as the three stooges of the Lebanon campaign and blamed for further emboldening Hizbollah.

Meanwhile, Gilad Sharon, the son of the comatose warrior and ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has advocated stripping Arab Israelis of their citizenship.(see Haaretz editorial). Hamas broke its tenuous 5 month truce with Israel, while gun-toting protestors dropped the corpse of a murdered man named Hassan Abu Sharkh into the Palestinian Authority Parliament. Message received.
Nearly a hundred rockets and mortars struck Israel from Gaza, with no injuries, a tactic that intelligence sources say was meant to distract Israeli forces while Hamas kidnapped another soldier or two. The Israel Defense Forces killed three Hamas agents who they said were planting a bomb next to the barricade at the Gaza border. Especially this month, Israelity bites.