Exactly Right

Nehemia Shtrasler, in Haaretz:

There was one moment during the war when we had the upper hand. It was the moment when Israel had succeeded in striking Hezbollah with strong and surprising force, Haifa was peaceful and the number of casualties was small. That was the right moment to stop the war, declare victory and move on to the diplomatic track.

This opportunity came when the G-8 convened on July 14, two days after the fighting broke out....

But Olmert and Amir Peretz did not know when to quit. They wanted to show the public that they, the "civilians," were more courageous than their predecessors, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. That is why they continued the war in order to attain goals that from the outset were unattainable.

The fact that the Israeli press has, if anything, been just as critical of the IDF and Ehud Olmert reminds me of my favourite rebuttal of the "anti-Likud=anti-semite" charge, from a Jewish author whose name I forget: "If being against the Likud party is all it takes to be an anti-semite, then Israel is the most anti-semitic country on Earth."