The Week After Winograd

Ehud Barak of the Labour Party will not be leaving the government and will not call for early elections. So pleased he is with his actions (NOT!), that when the Knesset members gathered to discuss the results of the report, Barak was conspicuously missing from his seat, stating that he did not want to give the impression that he was relieving Olmert of his responsibility and failure during the war.

The day after the report was released, a poll revealed that if elections were held now, Netanyahu (Likud) would receive 30% of the vote; Olmert (Kadima), in his shame, would still garner approximately 18% of the vote; and Barak would come in a pitiful third, with approximately 14% of the vote. Had Barak left the coalition before Wednesday, January 30th, the results would have been significantly higher in Barak's favor, because his actions would have shown that he has a line he will not cross for the sake of holding onto power.

Olmert takes every opportunity the press gives him to laud the conclusions of the Winograd Committee Final Report, and sits pretty in the Prime Minister's office, ready to give away the country to those who would kill us. Since the issue of the report, more cities within Israeli territory have suffered from bombings, injuries and human fatalities.

At least one of the members of the committee has announced to the press that they were indeed more inclined to soften the blow on Olmert, because several members did not want to hand the country over to Netanyahu and the parties on the right. Now a State Commission must be chosen to investigate the impropriety of the acts and conclusions of the Winograd people, Olmert's cronies. If, however, more of Olmert's good friends land conveniently in this group of dedicated and supposedly objective citizens, we can expect more of the same.

In other words, more bombs and no political bombshells.