The Israeli people want new general elections. Ehud Olmert doesn’t think that’s necessary. Will his successor in Kadima yield to the will of the people, or continue the arrogance that started with Ariel Sharon ignoring the will of the people regarding the Gaza pullout?

And Israelis want Olmert to go.

Over half of the Jewish public in Israel (69%) believes Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is lacking in moral stature and therefore he should step down regardless of the outcome of the police investigation in his matter, July’s War and Peace Index, which was published on Friday, indicates.

The public’s discontent, reveled the data, was not limited to Olmert’s personal conduct or political leadership alone: Some 53% of those polled said they would like to see the government resign as soon as possible, making way for general elections; 25% said they wanted the current government to stay in office, but with a different person as prime minister; and only 12% said they wanted to current government to stay in office unchanged.

Say goodbye, Olmert.

If you ask me, Israel needs government reform—badly.

The NYT follows up with another article showing what I observed yesterday, that Olmerts resignation is being viewed not in terms of security considerations, but in terms of the peace process. Today we have Israel’s Political Situation Dims Hopes for Peace Deal

“It’s over,” said David Makovsky, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Rice was counting on the fact that Olmert’s dwindling political fortunes would lead him to turn to a diplomatic victory as a springboard toward a political comeback. But if he’s leaving office, that doesn’t happen.”

A few officials at the State Department expressed the slim hope that Mr. Olmert, now freed of the political shackles that make concessions so difficult, could turn his lame-duck status into an asset and strike a peace bargain with Mr. Abbas.

There’s something very disturbing about the State Department’s sentiment, if it’s correct. In other words the State Department wanted a lame duck political leader to strike a deal that went against the perceived interests of his constituents.

Noah Pollak argues that the early end to the administration’s peace making is a good thing:

In a way, this is not too tragic an end to the Annapolis process. It goes out not with a bang, but a whimper, with various diplomatic structures left in place so that the next Israeli and American governments can resume this perfunctory exercise without all the foolish fanfare that has marked the commencement of past efforts. Maintaining the drip-drip-drip of the peace process seems to have become a diplomatic necessity for American administrations. This iteration of it seems likely to fade into the background without the violence and death of its predecessors.

The Economist’s former Israel correspondent, Gideon Lichfield, blogs:

It’s ironic and sad that the only way to make an Israeli prime minister (and, while we’re at it, a Palestinian president) take peace talks seriously is to make his or her political survival hang by a thread. Which is why I’m kinda glad I don’t have to write about this stuff any more. And yet I can’t help doing it anyway…

Let’s see. Oslo was signed after Rabin had been in power for a year. The Hebron Accords were signed six months after Netanyahu became PM. That’s hardly when the survival of either was hanging by a thread. Though every Prime Minister has gotten reckless at the end of his term of office trying to make some even bigger deal - even without public support - every Israeli Prime Minister since 1992 has been serious about peace talks throughout his term. Failing to reach terms with irridentists like Arafat or Abbas is not a sign of a lack of seriousness. It’s just not possible.

Lichfield can complain as much as he wants about Israel’s leadership, but if he were honest he’d see that where Netanyahu is now is where Peace Now was 20 years ago. Frankly, it doesn’t matter what Israel has conceded, it hasn’t led to reciprocal moderation among either the Palestinian leadership or people.

If after 15 years of peace making the “moderate” leader of the Palestinians can only make an official statement in honor of a murderer and not to Israel, he is not at all moderate and it’s little wonder that the Israeli people have no trust in him or his intentions.

So yes, Olmert’s resignation may adversely affect the trappings of a peace process, but peace remains as elusive as ever until there is a true change of Palestinian hearts.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

From Popular Mechanics.

In a discovery that could qualify as one of the most important in the history of space exploration, NASA’s Phoenix Mission may have confirmed the presence of water ice on the planet, Popular Mechanics has learned. The scheduling of a press conference for Thursday at 2 p.m. Eastern Time by NASA and the University of Arizona has raised hopes in the space community that scientists will announce the breakthrough. When pressed for details, a spokesperson for the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory refused to elaborate beyond saying that the Phoenix team would unveil new findings from the ongoing robotic mission to Mars. If the rumor holds true, it would be the first direct confirmation of water ice beyond Earth.

(h/t Instapundit)

Big deal, NASA’s known about water on Mars for some time. Heh.

And while it may not be of water, a liquid lake has been confirmed on Saturn’s moon, Titan.

NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.