Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister whose career hangs by a thread, is a paradox. There are those in Israel who believe he could be an F.W. de Klerk, capable of bringing to an end the long struggle with the Palestinians. He is, at the same time, perhaps the most unpopular prime minister since the creation of the state, with an approval rating once as low as 3 per cent.

That was not because of his peace policy – polls regularly report majority Israeli support for a negotiated end to the conflict – but because of his war policy: the incompetent and reckless management of the 2006 Lebanon war that gave a damaging exhibition of the limits to Israel’s military might.