Asleep at the Switch

There's speculation that Israeli Prime Minister might announce shortly that he will resign as Prime Minister or not seek reelection in Kadima's elections.

His resignation should have come nearly two years ago after his government failed to stop Hizbullah in its tracks. Now, we learn that Hizbullah has not only rebuilt its terror infrastructure, but it's tripled the number of missiles in its arsenal for use against Israel.

Israel's security has been undermined time and time again by Olmert, and the Israeli people have done little more than shrugged. Hizbullah has completely recovered from its disastrous war against Israel and has essentially gotten a veto over the legitimate Lebanese government. Hizbullah has thwarted the UNIFIL mandate time and time again, despite the fact that UNIFIL is charged with the terror group's disarmament. UNIFIL's mandate was set forth precisely to address Israel's security needs, and its failures directly affect Israel's security.

Disengagement from Gaza was a good idea, but Israel's security was not enhanced by the move because the Israeli government refused to treat each and every suicide attack, kassam rocket fired, or mortar attack as an act of war and dealt with them accordingly. Instead, the Israeli government acted only when an Israeli was killed or seriously wounded. Even then, those were limited reprisals and hardly ever against those ordering the attacks.

Those instances increased with alarming regularity as the Palestinian terrorists realized that they had the upper hand. It was a situation akin to a turtle in a slowly boiling pot - he didn't realize the danger until it was too late. The Palestinians were turning up the heat on Israel, and Israel wasn't responding.

The Israelis still aren't responding. Hamas openly engages in smuggling operations to bring weapons into Gaza for use against Israel - but Israel does nothing. A hudna is in effect enabling the terrorists to regroup and rearm, and it's lulling the Israelis into a false sense of security.

Israel continues to foster the charade perpetrated by the terrorist groups that there is a difference between the military and political wings of those groups. There is none. The goals are the same - the ultimate destruction of Israel - and the groups cover for each other. The terrorist groups also collude to engage in attacks so as to maintain pressure on Israel and force it into acting - so that the Israelis can be blamed by the media for breaking the hudna, freeing up the other groups to resume their deadly business.

UPDATE:
Olmert has announced he will leave office in two months' time by not running for reelection in his party's primary elections on September 17. This isn't soon enough, as the lasting damage to Israel's security has been done.

It also indicates that Olmert believes that the criminal investigations into his misconduct and corruption are going to lead to indictments.