60,000 rally in Tel Aviv for release of IDF abductees

Oh dear.

Things are getting worse for Ehud Olmert. His coalition is in danger of splitting.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz is setting himself at odds with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by supporting a state commission of inquiry into the Lebanon war and preparing an aggressive campaign to increase funding for social issues in the 2007 budget, even if this leads to a coalition crisis.

Peretz, giving in to increasing pressure in his Labor Party, announced Thursday that he would back the state commission of inquiry, and plans to officially inform the party's faction meeting Friday morning that he will do so.

Olmert and Peretz met Thursday to discuss the matter, but reached no agreement.

And now 60,000 people have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv demanding the release of Gilad Shalit, Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev; the soldiers who's kidnappings supposedly started all this strife but who's names have been allowed to drift out of the picture as Olmert expanded his war aims to the destruction of Hizbullah.

"Nobody connects the abducted soldiers and the war declared in their name anymore," said Shai Shenkman, a comrade of Regev's. "In the war trauma the kidnapping slipped from consciousness, like Ron Arad. That precedent scares us." Arad is an Israel Air Force navigator who has been missing since 1986, when he bailed out over Lebanon.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and a former chief rabbi of Israel, stood side by side with MK Ran Cohen (Meretz) in a rare show of unity. Religious protesters stood with secular ones, and settlers stood with kibbutzniks. Demonstrators calling for a state inquiry commission joined those who object to it, as all called for the soldiers' release.

Olmert continues to defy calls for a state inquiry commission as such a commission is almost certain to call for his resignation.

Now his coalition partners and 60,000 people on the streets are calling for the very thing he refuses to give them.

I have now printed several articles reminding people that this war was started to rescue Gilad Shalit and was horrified at how his name was allowed to slip out of public consciousness.

I find the actions of average Israelis to be really reassuring. They have obviously not forgotten what this war was supposed to be about.

"Something in the ethos has been eroded," said Uzi Dayan, head of an
organization acting to release POWs and one of the rally's organizers.

Shlomi Gvili, a friend of Eldad Regev's, said: "Since Madhat Yosef was abandoned at Joseph's Tomb, the state has undergone an ongoing moral deterioration that must be stopped."

"If I'm called to the flag again I'll go, but I'm afraid these precedents will have a bad effect on the younger generation."

Idan Zak, a youngster approaching his army service, agrees. "It's frightening," he said. "They always told me the army does everything to get its POWs back. That is no longer true."

Olmert is running our of options. Like Bush regarding Iran, he's another one that should have taken a different tack. He should have engaged in the prisoner swap rather than engage in a war that could never win.

Unlike Bush, it looks unlikely that Olmert will be able to avoid paying the ultimate price.

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Tags: Olmert, Israel, Hizbullah, Lebanon, Gilad Shalit, Udi Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, prisoner, swap