How much is "hanging fire" on so many issues in Israel? A move to the right? What about Iran? Syria? More or less violence in Gaza and the West Bank? DEBKAfile tends to the right. The announcement as posted there.

Ehud Olmert will step down after his party picks successor in two months
DEBKAfile Special Report

July 30, 2008, 8:54 PM (GMT+02:00)

The announcement was made in a special broadcast to the nation from the prime ministers Jerusalem residence Wednesday night, July 30. Olmert said he would not interfere in his Kadima party's primary vote for his successor, the first round of which takes place Sept 18 followed by a run-off if necessary on Sept. 24.

He promised a smooth transition of government to whoever Kadima elects to ease the formation of an alternative government. The prime minister said he would then devote himself to clearing his name and proving his innocence of the half dozen corruption investigations pending against him. He admitted that public and political pressure had forced him to take this step.

Four ministers have declared their candidacy in the vote to replace him, Tzipi Livni, foreign affairs, Shaul Mofaz, transport, Avi Dichter, internal security and Meir Sheetrit, immigration. However, the next government is unlikely to survive long and Israel may face a general election later this year or early 2009.

Livni, Mofaz and defense minister Ehud Barak were in Washington when the prime minister made his announcement. Livni cancelled a news conference she had scheduled.

Olmert spoke bitterly of having to contend with constant attacks on his probity while responsible for the nations most fateful decisions. I am proud to live in a country where the prime minister is not above the law, he said, but neither should he be beneath it. He declared he had satisfactory answers to all the charges against him and was sure the truth would see the light.

While he defended his record during two and a half years in office, most political observers agree that Ehud Olmert will go down as one of Israels least competent prime ministers.

He leaves a country beset with an accumulation of daunting security and social problems, the most prominent being the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, the mounting strength of Israels declared enemies, the Syrian armed forces, Lebanons Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas.

Israel-Palestinian relations are in limbo.

The incomes gap between Israels rich and poor has grown wider.

There is a pervasive sense of depression and insecurity under a government that neglects the issues that matter most to the people, from security to the availability of education and housing, care for the infirm and aged and a grave shortage of water.

http://www.debka.com/headline_print.php?hid=5479

mdma, I typically try to read daily from three Israeli on-line publications. I suspect some other posters might agree that the three are represenative of right, left and center. DEBKAfile, Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post. 

Never have I said my spouse was a Jewish pilot, but you choose to repeat that that I did. What I said was he served in  Operation Nickelgrass on the U.S. cargo aircraft the C-5 A in the Yom Kipper War of 1973. Not as an Israeli pilot. I think if you bother you will find considerable information here about that massive airlift Meir said "Saved Israel."  Either you are confused or repeating a deliberate lie.

http://www.afa.org/magazine/Dec1998/1298nickel_print.html

Certainly you could have better information about the possibility of Netanyahu being returned to power in the election said to have been scheduled for Sept?  Wonder if he has moderated his positions since this publication in a blog from 2006 that includes a number of both his and Olmerts quotes.  Obviously, times have changed considerably since 2006, but has BiBi?

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/44439/?type=blog

This post begins thus:

Netanyahu cries: "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!"
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on November 17, 2006, Printed on July 31, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//44439/

Israel's former (and possibly future) right wing Prime Minister, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is not the kind of person you want to make decisions about what to eat for dinner or which shirt to wear, let alone foreign policy.

This week, according to Ha'aretz, Netanyahu said [VIDEO]:

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."
While the Iranian president "denies the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, "he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."

The full blog post by an alternet editor in 2006 can be accessed on the link previous to the intro.