"We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want to be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies." -- Ehud Olmert in a June 2005 address to the Israel Policy Forum in New York. As Israel's enemies grow stronger, strengthend with the Gaza surrender, Olmert makes the stunning admission that he's tired of defeating Israel's enemies. Tired of winning, Olmert plans to surrender the strategic high ground of Judea and Samaria to Israel's implacable enemies, so that they can win.

... can determine (until the next election) what public opinion should be listened to and what public policy is and is not within the limits of the (secular) law and the courts. That is how a parliamentary democracy works. Having said that both Olmert and Peretz are willing to enter into dialogue with all sectors to ensure that irreconcilable rifts are avoided. However the right should know that even democrats have limits to their patience.

According to the arithmetic that I learned, 24 out of 120 seats, is 24%. Normal people would call this losing a referendum.

He's right, the country has changed in an unprecedented manner. We used to have an ideology, a path, a belief. Once we wanted a Jewish national homeland, prosperous and secure, but it looks like that dream has all but vanished. Israelis have been worn down and exhausted from 58 years of terrorism, and the vote for Olmert was just Israelis' desperate grasping for some sort of hope. "Final status" is just that desperate hope. It gives the illusion of closure to this ever-lasting conflict. The only problem is that turning our backs on the territories and seperating ourselves from them will only give terrorists free reign with all the time in the world to plot and carry out attacks without any pressure from Israeli forces. Olmert's plan WILL give us closure. It will determine Israel's final status of bloodshed and terror.

If he believes that this vote was in support of his suicide plan, he is totally delusional.

How did this coward tire from being courageous,tired of winning,ect. YOU WERE NOT A COMBAT SOLDIER.YOU WERE A LOWLY PENCIL-PUSHER FOR THE ARMY MAGAZINE.YOU DID NOTHING TO DEFEND THIS COUNTRY! YOUR CHILDREN DID NOTHING! How dare he ever say that he had a part in defeating the enemies of Israel.He is helping the enemies of Israel. I hope the next govt. has a platform that says they will punish those who put us into mortal danger.

Sharon repeatedly stated that he had no intention whatsoever for another unilateral disengagement. Olmert's policies are not at all those of Sharon's. Sharon would have never withdrawn from some of the West Bank if there was to be another West Bank withdrawal. If he had plans for another West Bank withdrawal he would have done them all together. Sharon's last interview in Asia repeated that there were to be no more withdrawals unless the Arabs were to take steps against terrorism. Olmert's lie that Israelis are for the withdrawl is false on its face, there are 50 seats in the Knesset directly opposed to such a plan and only his 29 and Meretz's 5 that are clearly for it. Labor and the Pensioners received votes on social agendas, not his retarded concession plan.

Many parties dropped out and left him with a minority government. This will probably happen again before another disengagement. Get ready for elections in 2008!

This election was not a referendum. He won this election because voters were disappointed by Likud. Rather than lying, he must organize a real referendum regarding further disengagements.

Hardly a referendum by any stretch of the imagination. What the Kadima gang does have is a subservient and fawning media in its service, and an Oligarchy of 18 (mafia-like) Families to manipulate all the systems of governance. If Olmert considers that the people had a 'fair' election, then perhaps he needs to study the electoral patterns of Latin American regimes. His vast PR machine, inherited from Sharon's cronies, will employ ANY dirty trick on behalf of their paymasters.

tem or topic. <25% only perpetuates your putsch dictatorship that you as the poodle of a sick mind and unbound heart of the arielim schinerman inheirited the leadership of an unelected party. you were elected 33rd on the the last elected party list befoe the putsch that no one objected to. How can you be tired of victories not won. Attacks contiue yet the most force you use is against the best of Jews without regard to age, sex or condition. You won't even debate anything. What else would you expect from the poodle putsch incumbant.

Olmert: You don't speak for the Jews. You only speak for Peace Now and the rest of the traitors who are concerned about the arabs and your houses in Ramat Aviv. This was no referendum. You won no mandates. You will be only remembered for the evil you have caused.

for 50 years we zionists have proudly championed the democratic nature of the Jewish state...now the right (as represented by mostly diaspora talkback respondents) have joined the far radical left, arabs and far right in questioning the legitimacy of an Israeli election and right of an elected knesset majority to set government policy. Jabotinsky, Begin and others of the democratic right would be ashamed of you!