Yitzchak Ben-Israel, who will replace newly elected President Shimon Peres as Kadima Knesset Member, has criticized Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his mismanagement of the Second Lebanon War but has not called for his resignation.

Interviewed by the Jerusalem Post, Ben-Israel said, "The government failed in the war, but I don't know any country in the world where a government that failed [also] quit." Ben-Yisrael heads the Israel Space Agency and the defense studies program at Tel Aviv University.