Last update - 00:00 03/06/2007
Hundreds protest at PM's residence demanding his resignation
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent
A few hundred demonstrators on Sunday protested outside the official residence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem, calling for him to resign due to the harsh conclusions of the Winograd Commission's interim report on the failures of the Second Lebanon War.
Organizers expected around 2,000 demonstrators, far more than the few hundred that actually attended the rally, which was held under the slogan, "We're taking responsibility, this doesn' end in the square."
Speakers included head of the Tafnit ("turnaround") party Uzi Dayan, Attorney Eliad Sharga from the Movement for Quality Government, and Ariela Goldman, mother of fallen Israel Defense Forces soldier Noam Goldman.
After the rally was over, a large protest tent that was set up by a pair of students from Tel Aviv was dismantled. The tent was set up by students Itai Harari and Zakari Viner, who held a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem the day after the Winograd report findings were published. The students initially said that they would stay in the tent until Olmert resigns, but have since decided otherwise.
Harari stated that he doesn't feel that they failed, rather, that they achieved a great deal of progress.
"The progress was in the third week, when we understood that the masses would not come. It's not that they don't care, they just don't believe that it's possible to change things," Harari said, adding that "in progress, there is also pain."