Israeli PM forced to shelve West Bank pullout plan
The messy Lebanon war has cost Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert much of his political capital – and with approval ratings plummeting, he has been forced to shelve his ambitious West Bank pullout plan and is instead struggling to ride out a growing public storm over the government’s wartime bungles.
At the start of his term three months ago, Mr Olmert had been confident he could draw Israel’s final borders by 2010 by pulling out of much of the West Bank unilaterally. He had vowed to turn Israel into a “fun place to live”.
