Word: olmert
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Halutz's two superiors, Prime Minster Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, are also in dismal shape with Israelis. A Haaretz newpaper poll on the eve of the U.N.sponsored truce with Hizballah showed Olmert's approval rating dropping from 75% at the start of the Lebanon campaign to 48%. Peretz fell even lower, from 65% to 37%. After the cease-fire, opposed by many Israelis who thought that Olmert buckled to international pressure and gave up the fight against Hizballah too soon, the Prime Minister's popularity may well have fallen even further...
...During a Monday session of the Knesset, Olmert was heckled by legislators as he admitted "deficiencies" in the way the war was handled. The opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party, and the likeliest challenger to Olmert's coalition cabinet, then went on to list what he described as the government's multiple "failures" in readying for war, protecting israelis from Hizballah bombardments and carrying out an indecisive campaign. In a rare show of unity, Likud right-wingers and Labor legislators joined to call for a high-level inquiry into all that went wrong...
...Making the situation worse for Olmert is how he ended the war. Weary reservists coming back from the Lebanese front spoke angrily to the press about being under-equipped and poorly commanded from the top. Few could understand why Olmert finally decided to launch a massive ground campaign - just 48 hours before the cease-fire took effect - inwhich over a dozen soldiers were killed and scores more wounded. Israel said it will start withdrawing troops from hard-fought positions inside southern Lebanon within the next 10 days, once U.N. forces arrive. Meanwhile, Olmert has reportedly approved negotiations to exchange...
When wars end inconclusively, victory is always in the eye of the beholder. So it should come as no surprise that since the Lebanon cease-fire went into effect Monday morning, everyone from Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and President Bush to Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the leaders of Syria and Iran have been broadcasting competing claims of victory. Weighing those claims, however, requires measuring the war's outcome against the initial objectives defined by the different sides, and comparing their positions after a month of fighting to what they were before Hizballah seized two Israeli soldiers on July...
...Troubles for Olmert...