The rally was great. I am happy I went. I got there a little early and walked around the grounds as it was beginning to fill up. I took pictures of a bunch of different signs, you can see some of them below (I tried to upload more but blogger was giving me problems with it..).

The rally had a distinct secular feel to it. I have been to a lot of hafganot over the nearly 17 years I have been in Israel. Rallies of all types supported by all sorts of groups. This was unique. Almsot all rallies are supported by a political party. Almost all rallies are sectarian, to a degree. Religious, settler, right-wing, left-wing, kach, whatever.

This rally was none of the above. The rally had no affiliation with any political party and no politician was invited to speak. The exception to that was the rally organizer who is a politician wannabe. He ran in the last national elections under a party (Tafnit) he had formed, but failed to win any seats in Knesset. He was the main organizer of the event, and while he is involved (sort of) in politics, he organized it as a reserve duty officer, not as a political representative,

The rally was completely mixed between religious and non-religious. I think the percentages of non-religious were greater than religious. I might be wrong, but that was the impression I had. Of all my friends who I asked if they would be going, not a single one told me yes. They all said it would be mostly non-religious, and they wanted to leave this one for them. They did not want it to seem like a settler protest, or anything similar. So a lot of people stayed away, and, I think, while it was very mixed, it was overall non-religious.

Everybody stood together with one goal. To tell Olmert he must resign. The speakers I heard were great (I left a little early, so I did not hear them all) and they gave over their messages clearly and strongly.

As I was walking around before it began, an older, secular fellow came over to me and said (in Hebrew), "I am surprised you are here." I looked at him and said, "Why are you surprised? I am part of the nation - one of the people. I am here for the same thing you are here for." He shook my hand and moved along. I later met some people from Ramat Aviv (a mostly secular elitist stronghold in Tel Aviv) who also expressed their happiness to see me, being I was clearly religious and probaly from the right-wing side of the political spectrum.

After all is said and done - I doubt lmert will resign because of this rally He will ignore it. He does not care what the people think. That is obvious. But I had to so my part, and I am happy I did.

I thought I had an easy solution.

What was the problem, you ask, that needed a solution? To go or not to go. Should I go to the big rally tonight or not. There are reasons for and against. I will get to that in a moment.

So, I thought I had nothing to worry about. I was supposed to be down south this evening near Arad. My brother is in the army and he is on an army base outside of Arad. His base is having Parent's Visiting Day this afternoon and I was going to go, because his (our) parents live in the United States and could not make it to the base.

He called me up this morning and said not to come. All the chayalim bodedim (lone soldiers) are being moved off the base to somewhere else (an undisclosed location). My guess is so they will not feel bad, and homesick, when they see everyone else's parents show up while theirs do not. So anyway, I have nothing to go for.

While that saved me the 2 hour drive and the hassle, even though I was looking forward to it, it created this other dilemma for me.

To go or not to go.

On the one hand, I believe Olmert needs to resign, and that is the purpose of the protest rally tonight. To let Olmert know the people want him to resign. I should join in.

On the other hand, it is probably a waste of time because politicians stopped paying attention to rallies a long time ago.

I have not found anybody who has said they are going. Some people say they are not going either because it is a waste of time, or for another reason. That is, they are concerned that it will look like an "Orange" event. They think that if too many right-wing protesters are there, it will look like a settler rally, similar to the Gush Katif rallies, and the whole public will turn against it, along with even greater chances of the politicians ignoring it. So they say it is better to not go and let it have the flavor of a more general, non-descript crowd.

Many people say they do not know if they will go or not. They will decide at the last minute.

Jameel has a similar dilemma

It is difficult to find the time to waste, and I do believe it will be a waste of time. Going to the rally means I will probably miss all of or at least most of my shiur tonight. it means not having the dinner time with the family. It means going shopping in the morning with the crowds instead of tonight.

I have plenty of reasons not to go, to consider it inconvenient.

But on the other hand, even if they ignore the public's outcry, we have to do our share. We cannot become complacent just because of them. that is what Olmert wants. He wants us to not show up. It means he will have less pressure. Sure, he might (probably) ignore us anyway, but it is the right thing to do.

After writing this little rant, I think I am going to go. I have to do my job and say what I believe in. If he ignores our call, we will have to find another way. But that does not relieve me of my obligation now.

You are more worried about your own career than about Israel. Olmert go home!

I have been invited to participate in a "roundtable discussion" on the BBC, which will begin in a few minutes. The topic is the resignation of Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.

The link they gave me is here but I do not see any place there to listen. Maybe when it goes live there will be a link on that page.. they also told me it would be archived for listening later.... The link is on the right side where it says Listen Live

-------------

well that was pretty painless... I was asked what I thought about Halutz's resignation and then further asked about whether more heads will and should roll...

As you all know, last night was a big night for the media. Two major events occurred last night.

1. The Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, resigned.
2. The Attorney Generals office officially opened an investigation into Ehud Olmert for one of the affairs he is involved in, specifically the possibility that he influenced a tender for the sale of Bank Leumi. There are two other items that are still in the queue that the Attorney General has not yet decided whether or not to open a full investigation.

Dan Halutz did the right thing, albeit too late. He should have resigned four months ago when the war was over and allowed the IDF to rehab properly under proper guidance and direction from someone else at the helm. It was clear that Dan Halutz was not the right guy for the job, and when everybody lost confidence in him he should have gone home. At least now he did the right thing.

The question I have is why now? All along he has been saying he will not resign until the Winograd committee comes back with recommendations and then only if they recommend he resign. They are scheduled to make their initial recommendations only next month, if I am not mistaken.

If Halutz could have stayed to fix the problems, then his position on not resigning would even be honorable. However, there has not been a day since the war in which he was not criticized and handcuffed. He simply was not in position to fix the problems. It is about time he fessed up and did what was obviously necessary.

All along Halutz has been saying that he takes responsibility for the failures of the war and IDF, but in his book responsibility does not mean resigning, rather working to fix the problem. I actually agree with that. After Barak quit politics (before the current comeback) after his failed stint as Prime Minister, he was heavily criticized for damaging the Labor Party and then disappearing into the business world. Netanayahu was similarly criticized after his issues with the Likud way back when. When Halutz decides to stay and fix the problems, he is criticized for that.

My conclusion is that we are simply just a bloodthirsty people. We want blood. If somebody resigns, we criticize him for resigning. if somebody does not resign, we criticize him for that.

We are Jews. That is just the way we are.

And on that note, on to Ehud Olmert. I have many times called for his resignation. I have been accused of being anti-democratic in this call. Just because I do not agree with someone does not mean he has to resign.

To that I say, this is different. I have gone through Prime Ministers I did not like or agree with. I did not like Rabin for what he did in Oslo. I did not like Barak. I am wary of Netanyahu and did not like some of the things he has done. Sharon in the end of his career made all his friends hate him and all his enemies like him. But I have never called on those Prime Ministers to resign. Just because I do not like or agree with certain policy is not a reason to resign. The PM was voted in and I have to accept that and work within the system and law to influence policy to the way I think is correct, but obviously I will rarely have the ability to have such influence. In other words, I am allowed to protest policy I think is wrong. I can call for change in policy. And I did. But I never called on a PM to resign. Until Ehud Olmert. And that does not make me undemocratic.

Ehud Olmert is a master of political spin. He is hardly qualified for the job of Prime Minister. For all of you who will say he was fairly elected and we have to live with it, I tell you that he was fairly elected, but not on his own merits. He rode the wave of sympathy everyone had for Arik Sharon right into electoral victory. But that victory was nearly lost as in the two weeks prior to election day we saw his support erode from 45 + seats to the final tally of 29. A little more time and the sympathy vote might not have won him the election.

Sure, he won. But he does not deserve the position. All he has done is bring dishonor to the Israeli people. He has been under investigation after investigation. He has mouthed off inappropriately. He has had three soldiers abducted under his care and he has practically abandoned them. He managed a failed war, despite his calling it a victory.

It is time for Olmert to go home. The politicians from the various parties should stop being so worried about their seats and leased cars and vote no confidence in the leadership of Ehud Olmert, if he will not have the honor to do the right thing and resign on his own.