Thousands of Israelis rally to call for prime minister to quit over Lebanon

They say democracy represents the will of the people and yet, there are some politicians who manage to hold on to power despite huge protests against them. I'm thinking of Olmert in Israel, a man whose poll figures have been in single figures since his botched attempt to wipe out Hizbullah and rescue two kidnapped Israeli soldiers. He achieved neither and succeeded only in revealing the weakness of Israel's position when employing a traditional army against a guerilla force.

Yesterday, the protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv in an attempt to tell Olmert that his time was up and that, if he had any sense of decency, he would simply hang up his hat. All indications are that the Olmert camp feel that they have ridden out this particular storm.

Among those gathered in Tel Aviv last night were reservist soldiers who fought in the war, relatives of some of those who died, and an array of critics of the government from the left and right wing. Ofer Winestok, 25, a student who voted for the Labour party in the last election and served in the infantry in the Lebanon war, said: "There was no leadership in this war. I saw how it was and they just reacted to what happened. The orders changed every few minutes; nobody knew what has happening or what were the targets."

He wore a T-shirt bearing a photograph of his cousin Guy Hasom, 24, an infantry soldier killed on the last day of the war. "The government needs to resign. They're not qualified to do their jobs," he said. The rally alone is unlikely to be enough to unseat Mr Olmert and his coalition government but it offered echoes of previous demonstrations of Israeli street power.

Protests in 1974, after the Yom Kippur war, eventually brought the resignation of the prime minister, Golda Meir. Tens of thousands gathered in the square in 1982 to protest against the invasion of Lebanon.

Malcolm Dash, 69, who fought in the Yom Kippur war, said: "Our government has failed, completely and utterly, and there is no room left for them. They have no plan or programme, and all they are doing is looking after their own seats. In any other nation they would have resigned by now." He said the capture of the two Israeli soldiers on July 12, which triggered last year's war, had needed a response but not a 34-day conflict. "They took us into a war when it should have been a reprisal."

Of course, Mr Dash is completely correct and is only echoing what many of us said at the time. There was never any need for a war in response to the kidnap of two Israeli soldiers. It was not only a chosen response, it was the wrong chosen response, as war was never going to be the way to achieve the kidnapped soldiers release; indeed, as I argued at the time, it was much more likely that such a step would result in the death of the soldiers before it guaranteed their release.

Olmert was, of course, not open to reason. The destruction he unleashed upon Lebanon was, in fact, criminal.

As I said at the time:

For make no mistake, what we are watching Israel do is disgusting. It's nothing less than the wanton destruction of an entire country.

The country that Hariri rebuilt, against all the odds, after years of civil war and after a twenty year Israeli occupation, is being systematically torn to pieces. It's bridges, it's power plants, it's roads, it's buildings, it's airport, are all being levelled. Even the viaduct has been broken.

Beirut, the "Paris of the East" is being reduced to rubble. And for what? For what?

When all this rampant, disgraceful destruction is over, the Israelis will still have to carry out their prisoner swap if they want their soldiers returned. Hizbullah will still be standing as a political force.

However, the damage done to Beirut will be nothing to the damage done to Israel's reputation. Or the damage done to the reputations of the leaders of the EU who stood silently by whilst war crimes were committed and said nothing.

It's taken a while, but the people of Israel have risen up against what was done in their name, if only because they realise that Olmert's actions have actually made them less safe rather than more.

Before this disgraceful war Israel was considered a superpower in the region and a power that couldn't be messed with. Olmert, by engaging in an ill thought out war with ever changing objectives, revealed Israel's weaknesses. She did not destroy Hizbullah, as Olmert had announced as his war aim, nor did she succeed in having her soldiers returned.

It was, in the eyes of many Israelis, a national humiliation. And for that, they want Olmert's head.

However, in Israel - as in the US and the UK - it appears that there is no mistake large enough to force any politician to stand down on a matter of honour.

Both Bush and Blair took their respective country's to war on what transpired to be a false prospectus. They have paid no price and both have since been re-elected. Anthony Eden had to resign in shame after Suez, Lord Carrington resigned after the Argentineans invaded the Falklands even though he had actually done nothing wrong. But he felt that, when national honour had been impugned then someone had to fall on their sword for the sake of uniting the nation.

Bush has responded to being totally wrong by declaring himself "the decider", a bizzare title to award himself when all of his decisions have proven erroneous. Perhaps what he means is that he gets to decide what reality itself is, for that certainly seems to be what he is doing when he sees progress in Iraq.

However, I don't get the feeling that Olmert will be able to avoid reality in the same way. He may have survived for the moment, but one gets the distinct feeling that his days are numbered.

Bush and Blair, however, will leave office at a time of their own choosing. That's not only unfortunate, that's an affront to democracy and accountability.

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Tags: Olmert, Livni, Israel-Lebanon war, war crimes, street protest, thousands march