It was his first trip to Israel in two years. 

Bloomberg traveled with New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Representative Gary Ackerman, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island.

Democratic political consultant Evan Stavisky said the trip was "a personal statement" for Bloomberg and "obviously smart politics--particularly when you bring the Congress' 'Maven of the Middle East' and the police commissioner. It's one of those times when the right thing to do is also the right political thing to do."

During a press conference in Ashkelon, Bloomberg told reporters it was important that he and others visit the country now. "For the people of Israel it says that others care," and that, "If we don't stand up against terrorists we're going to be victims ourselves."

During a televised interview with CNN from Tel Aviv, Bloomberg was asked about possible solutions to the conflict."Look, I don't work for the State Department, or for the military, for America or for Israel," he said. "And it's up to them to find a peaceful solution."

“It’s long overdue,” he said in a brief telephone interview this morning. “My God, you need a prime minister who can function, who can lead, who can be strong, who can direct. I think everyone realizes that Ehud Olmert was facing so many different issues and was such a weak leader—he did the right thing.”

Hikind said that he follows the polls in Israel regularly, and that “George W. Bush is extremely popular in America compared to the poll figures of Ehud Olmert’s in Israel over the past year.”

Which, based on numbers here and here, and here, is credible.

Hikind, it should be said, is no fan of Olmert. He's a Netanyahu man.

According to the press release, headlined "HIKIND & HUCKABEE," the two will appear at the Jerusalem Reclamation Project Dinner at 7:30 p.m. at the Marriott.

One thing that may come up: Hikind's recent claim that he witnessed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert taking a bribe after a fund-raiser in Brooklyn.

When Bloomberg got up to the microphone, he responded by saying that “only one of the Jerusalem mayors went on to lead the country – and Rudy would be happy to do it.”

Instead, the early durability of the cease-fire underscores the weakness of both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Hamas adversaries, as well as the fact that an all-out confrontation in Gaza is simply not an option. Whether it’s in the Jabaliya refugee camp or among the row houses of the battered border town of Sderot, a fatigue has set in after five months of war. Mr. Olmert and Hamas have precious little political capital to order a new escalation in the fighting.

For Hamas, endorsing the truce agreement means buying time to entrench itself as the new Palestinian ruling party. For Mr. Olmert, the cease-fire is preferable to ordering a controversial invasion of the Gaza Strip while the government and army are still under investigation for their botched war against Hezbollah this past summer.

“There’s no doubt that Olmert, [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz and Chief of Staff [Dan] Halutz are influenced due to the fact that they are now under inquiry, and that everybody looks at them with a magnifying glass,” said Danny Yatom, a Knesset member from the Labor Party. “Everybody follows their steps, moves and decisions very closely. There’s no doubt it has an effect on them.”

That’s not to say the government wouldn’t garner support if it were to decide to abandon the truce in favor of an offensive to stop rocket launchers and weapons smugglers.

For weeks, Israeli security hawks and military generals have been beating the drums for an all-out invasion of Gaza reminiscent of the 2002 “Defensive Shield” operation in the West Bank. At the beginning of the week, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the cease-fire is allowing Palestinian militants to rearm with more sophisticated weapons and turning Gaza into southern Lebanon.

But it’s precisely the bitter experience of last summer’s inconclusive offensive against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters that makes the possibility of a serious military campaign in Gaza so unappealing.

Almost a replay of the Lebanon nightmare, an offensive in Gaza would expose Mr. Olmert to a howl of international approbation over civilian casualties, as well as domestic hand-wringing over new reservist call-ups—all without the promise of actually eliminating the Gaza militants.

“Of course [a Gaza invasion is] very frightening for him, because of what happened in Lebanon—the way the army conducted itself, the possibility of having no results to show in a short time, and the possibility of international pressure,” said Avraham Diskin, a political-science professor at Hebrew University.

Mr. Diskin described the cease-fire as ad hoc strategizing—a byproduct of a variety of stresses on Mr. Olmert, ranging from his sagging popularity to an investigation into allegedly corrupt real-estate deals, to the tensions with coalition partners.

“I think he’s really under a lot of pressure,” Mr. Diskin said, and “that at least some of the decisions he’s making are due to those pressures.”

Cease-fires have been notoriously unstable over the course of the six-year Palestinian uprising, partly because of the Palestinian Authority’s lack of control over myriad militant groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas, with years of prestige at the forefront of the “resistance” to Israeli occupation, had always been a critical linchpin in reaching initial agreement on the truces. But because the Islamic militants never played a political role in the Palestinian government, there was little downside to ordering the organization’s military wing back into action.

Now, for the first time, Hamas finds itself in charge of a Palestinian Authority paralyzed by an international-aid boycott and unable to contain a rising tide of lawlessness. While other militant outfits have pledged to retaliate for alleged Israeli violations of the cease-fire in the West Bank, Hamas has remained committed to the cease-fire.

That’s because the Islamic militant politicians recognize that the organization can’t make good on promises to reform and revitalize the Palestinian government at the same time that its military wing is ordering rocket attacks on Israeli towns.

Over the last week, an Israeli military judge ordered the release of Palestinian public-works minister Abdel Rahman Zaidan after four weeks in prison. The newly released Hamas cabinet member said he believed that his release owed partly to the fact that he is an outspoken supporter of the truce.

“At this time, we are convinced that we cannot resolve any issue with force,” he said. “This is a no-win situation. For that reason, we think a calming would be more fruitful for everyone. There is a need for development and rebuilding.

“There are needs for the Palestinians that the guerrilla fight doesn’t achieve,” Mr. Zaidan continued. “The guerrilla fight is only for annoying the Israelis and giving them a sense of insecurity. We know this won’t achieve our final goal.”

A break in the fighting gives Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party an opportunity to focus on negotiations on a power-sharing agreement meant to pave the way for a restoration of international aid. The rivals are keenly aware that their public has grown weary of the unending cycle of violence.

“Both Hamas and Fatah realize that the Palestinian people are getting bored of this,” said Omar Shaban, a Gaza-based political analyst. “People are suffering a lot, and they want to relax. They know that more goods might come in, the borders will open, and there might be employment. They know if the fighting goes on, it will mean more suffering. People feel that there’s no use [in the fighting], and that no results have been achieved.”

To be sure, the odds still seem stacked against the long-run prospects for the latest Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire to succeed. Several factors seem to point toward a weakening of the truce: the ongoing hiatus in peace negotiations, the inability of Israel and Hamas to reach a prisoner swap that would release Cpl. Gilad Shait after nearly six months of captivity in Gaza, and the stalemated Hamas-Fatah unity talks.

But for the time being, Israel is cautiously reducing military activity in the West Bank. And even those doves cynical about Mr. Olmert’s peace offering to the Palestinians are quietly holding their breath for something bigger.

“The cease-fire is not only a necessary move; it’s a chance to replicate the cease-fire to the West Bank and turn it into a lever for negotiations with the Palestinians,” said Ran Cohen, a member of the left-wing Meretz-Yachad party. “Even if it was just lip service, in the Middle East, lip service might trigger movement in unpredictable ways.”

Instead, the early durability of the cease-fire underscores the weakness of both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Hamas adversaries, as well as the fact that an all-out confrontation in Gaza is simply not an option. Whether it’s in the Jabaliya refugee camp or among the row houses of the battered border town of Sderot, a fatigue has set in after five months of war. Mr. Olmert and Hamas have precious little political capital to order a new escalation in the fighting.

For Hamas, endorsing the truce agreement means buying time to entrench itself as the new Palestinian ruling party. For Mr. Olmert, the cease-fire is preferable to ordering a controversial invasion of the Gaza Strip while the government and army are still under investigation for their botched war against Hezbollah this past summer.

“There’s no doubt that Olmert, [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz and Chief of Staff [Dan] Halutz are influenced due to the fact that they are now under inquiry, and that everybody looks at them with a magnifying glass,” said Danny Yatom, a Knesset member from the Labor Party. “Everybody follows their steps, moves and decisions very closely. There’s no doubt it has an effect on them.”

That’s not to say the government wouldn’t garner support if it were to decide to abandon the truce in favor of an offensive to stop rocket launchers and weapons smugglers.

For weeks, Israeli security hawks and military generals have been beating the drums for an all-out invasion of Gaza reminiscent of the 2002 “Defensive Shield” operation in the West Bank. At the beginning of the week, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the cease-fire is allowing Palestinian militants to rearm with more sophisticated weapons and turning Gaza into southern Lebanon.

But it’s precisely the bitter experience of last summer’s inconclusive offensive against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters that makes the possibility of a serious military campaign in Gaza so unappealing.

Almost a replay of the Lebanon nightmare, an offensive in Gaza would expose Mr. Olmert to a howl of international approbation over civilian casualties, as well as domestic hand-wringing over new reservist call-ups—all without the promise of actually eliminating the Gaza militants.

“Of course [a Gaza invasion is] very frightening for him, because of what happened in Lebanon—the way the army conducted itself, the possibility of having no results to show in a short time, and the possibility of international pressure,” said Avraham Diskin, a political-science professor at Hebrew University.

Mr. Diskin described the cease-fire as ad hoc strategizing—a byproduct of a variety of stresses on Mr. Olmert, ranging from his sagging popularity to an investigation into allegedly corrupt real-estate deals, to the tensions with coalition partners.

“I think he’s really under a lot of pressure,” Mr. Diskin said, and “that at least some of the decisions he’s making are due to those pressures.”

Cease-fires have been notoriously unstable over the course of the six-year Palestinian uprising, partly because of the Palestinian Authority’s lack of control over myriad militant groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas, with years of prestige at the forefront of the “resistance” to Israeli occupation, had always been a critical linchpin in reaching initial agreement on the truces. But because the Islamic militants never played a political role in the Palestinian government, there was little downside to ordering the organization’s military wing back into action.

Now, for the first time, Hamas finds itself in charge of a Palestinian Authority paralyzed by an international-aid boycott and unable to contain a rising tide of lawlessness. While other militant outfits have pledged to retaliate for alleged Israeli violations of the cease-fire in the West Bank, Hamas has remained committed to the cease-fire.

That’s because the Islamic militant politicians recognize that the organization can’t make good on promises to reform and revitalize the Palestinian government at the same time that its military wing is ordering rocket attacks on Israeli towns.

Over the last week, an Israeli military judge ordered the release of Palestinian public-works minister Abdel Rahman Zaidan after four weeks in prison. The newly released Hamas cabinet member said he believed that his release owed partly to the fact that he is an outspoken supporter of the truce.

“At this time, we are convinced that we cannot resolve any issue with force,” he said. “This is a no-win situation. For that reason, we think a calming would be more fruitful for everyone. There is a need for development and rebuilding.

“There are needs for the Palestinians that the guerrilla fight doesn’t achieve,” Mr. Zaidan continued. “The guerrilla fight is only for annoying the Israelis and giving them a sense of insecurity. We know this won’t achieve our final goal.”

A break in the fighting gives Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party an opportunity to focus on negotiations on a power-sharing agreement meant to pave the way for a restoration of international aid. The rivals are keenly aware that their public has grown weary of the unending cycle of violence.

“Both Hamas and Fatah realize that the Palestinian people are getting bored of this,” said Omar Shaban, a Gaza-based political analyst. “People are suffering a lot, and they want to relax. They know that more goods might come in, the borders will open, and there might be employment. They know if the fighting goes on, it will mean more suffering. People feel that there’s no use [in the fighting], and that no results have been achieved.”

To be sure, the odds still seem stacked against the long-run prospects for the latest Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire to succeed. Several factors seem to point toward a weakening of the truce: the ongoing hiatus in peace negotiations, the inability of Israel and Hamas to reach a prisoner swap that would release Cpl. Gilad Shait after nearly six months of captivity in Gaza, and the stalemated Hamas-Fatah unity talks.

But for the time being, Israel is cautiously reducing military activity in the West Bank. And even those doves cynical about Mr. Olmert’s peace offering to the Palestinians are quietly holding their breath for something bigger.

“The cease-fire is not only a necessary move; it’s a chance to replicate the cease-fire to the West Bank and turn it into a lever for negotiations with the Palestinians,” said Ran Cohen, a member of the left-wing Meretz-Yachad party. “Even if it was just lip service, in the Middle East, lip service might trigger movement in unpredictable ways.”

Here's an ad you might not expect to see from a mere Assembly member. It's from Dov Hikind in this week's Jewish Press, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to step down.

"More than ever, Israel needs strong leadership. Olmert does not have what it takes: integrity, decisiveness, determination, vision, the strength and skill to lead Israel. He has failed and Israel cannot afford to fall with him," the ad says.

According to the message at the bottom of the ad, it was paid for by a Brooklyn-based non-profit group called Yad Moshe, which lists Hikind as its sole contact and may or may not be related to a similarly named organization that got moneyfrom Hikind's political action committee.

-- Azi Paybarah

CORRECTION: Hikind's communications director Charni Sochet emailed to say that the money I cited went from the Assemblyman's campaign committee to the non-profit, not the other way around as I originally noted.

Then the anti-tank rocket came bursting out of a nearby school, slamming into the tank’s right flank in between the gunner and his commander.

“There was a boom, flames and smoke,’’ recalled Corporal Mizrahi, the right side of his face peeling and shriveled from first-degree burns, his arm sewn up in several places from shrapnel and a bandage over the roof of his nose. “My whole face was covered in blood.”

Wheelchair-bound in the orthopedic ward of Haifa’s Rambam hospital, Corporal Mizrahi took consolation in the knowledge that the Merkava armor ultimately saved his life. Over the weekend, a four-man Merkava crew from his battalion was killed by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile.

Celebrated as one of the most heavily protected tanks in the world and the embodiment of the might of Israel’s ground forces, the Merkava tanks seemed to become practice targets over the last three weeks for Hezbollah anti-tank missile teams. And as a ceasefire went into effect this week, footage of smoke billowing from paralyzed Merkava tanks are likely to remain burned in the collective memory as one of the dominant images of a war gone awry.

“The tanks are a symbol in this war. In other conditions, 15 tanks could conquer a country,’’ said Eyal Hurwitz, a former infantry commando sent on special missions in Lebanon. “As an Israeli, I can’t bear to watch a tank exploding on live television. It kills us.”

At the end of a war considered by Israelis as a just fight for survival in which they were supposed to crush Hezbollah, the country turned inward with angry questions about why the army finished off a month of fighting in a disappointing stalemate.

In the middle of the war, Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz sidelined the general overseeing the ground war in Lebanon, marking the first time in more than three decades that a general had been so publicly rebuked in the middle of a war. With the war over, General Halutz himself is on the firing line.

Avshalom Vilan, a Knesset member from the dovish Meretz party, was one of the first politicians to call for a state commission of investigation like the ones set up in the aftermath of debacles in the 1982 Lebanon war and the 1973 war.

“I can’t call it a failed war, because most of the time there wasn’t even a war, except for the last four days,’’ he said. “There was an operation here, and there was an operation there.”

A week into the fighting, Mr. Vilan—a stocky veteran of Israel’s Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit—joked with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the military seemed to be taking its time.

“I told him, ‘Come on, I can’t remember a long war in the Middle East,’” he recalled. “There was an assumption that we are not limited in time, and that we have all the time we need.”

Among the myriad questions that await investigators is an explanation of just how the vaunted tank became so exposed to Hezbollah rocket fire.

Hebrew for “chariot,” the Merkava was first developed in the 1970’s by the legendary Gen. Israel Tal to ensure Israel’s superiority against rival ground forces from Egypt and Syria.

The tank was the first to be designed with its engine in the front, in order to absorb a head-on strike and protect its relatively small four-member crew. Today’s Merkavas come with a 105-millimeter cannon, two machine guns on the slab turret and a cruising speed of 50 miles an hour.

“Anyone who you talk to will say it affords greater protection to its crew than any tank in the world,’’ said Michael Oren, a military historian and senior fellow at the Shalem Center. “No tank is considered impenetrable, but it was considered Israel’s powerhouse. Here you have a tank that costs $2.5 million that is being taken out by a shell that costs $900.”

As the current conflict progressed, questions about the Merkava’s viability could even be overhead in the corridors of the Kirya, Israel’s Pentagon.

That’s partly because the tanks were operating in some of the worst possible terrain. At their strongest when dashing across flat sandy plains, the tanks in Lebanon were puttering around rocky slopes while navigating the back roads so as to stay off booby-trapped highways. And the slower the tanks, the more sluggish Israel’s ground operation against Hezbollah became.

It took Corporal Mizrahi’s crew about five hours to navigate the 15-mile trip from the Israeli border to the village of Kila.

“You always feel exposed, because it’s open territory,’’ he said. “There’s nothing much to do. They hide in these holes and jump out and open fire.”

Military experts say that Israeli intelligence knew ahead of time that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters had gotten shipments of Russian- and French-made Sagger missiles.

What isn’t clear is whether Israel’s army knew how many missiles they would face, and or about the ace firing displayed by some Hezbollah missile teams.

“They knew where to fire and how to fire,” said Corporal Mizrahi.

The Israeli army declined to provide numbers for the tanks that were hit or destroyed, though the Ha’aretz newspaper last week estimated Hezbollah had struck at least 20 tanks.

To be sure, military planners anticipated heavy losses in a ground war in Lebanon, a factor that probably played a role in the much-criticized decision to wait until last week to widen the offensive. Was the vulnerability of the tanks part of that calculation?

Rafi Noy, a former brigadier general who oversaw ground operations in Lebanon, said that the tanks became exposed because they were deployed in far too few numbers.

“When it’s one tank against one group of rocket shooters, the tank is going to be very vulnerable, and it’s going to be easy to hit,” he said. “If you send dozens of tanks in, the same tank might still be vulnerable, but at least you can smother the group of rocket launchers.”

Whatever the reason for the failures, the realizations came too late, after three weeks of devastating losses.

Back at the hospital, Corporal Mizrahi reflected, picked dead skin away from his face, and talked about his Lebanon curtain call—a march to an evacuation helicopter in a flak jacket, underwear and boots—and the unfinished business left behind.

“There are cells that we never caught. If we had more people, we could have caught them,’’ he said. “Soldiers went in there and got injured without reaching the goal. The kidnapped soldiers didn’t return. Hezbollah can rearm. And the next time, they’ll have a better knowledge of how we fight.”

Then the anti-tank rocket came bursting out of a nearby school, slamming into the tank’s right flank in between the gunner and his commander.

“There was a boom, flames and smoke,’’ recalled Corporal Mizrahi, the right side of his face peeling and shriveled from first-degree burns, his arm sewn up in several places from shrapnel and a bandage over the roof of his nose. “My whole face was covered in blood.”

Wheelchair-bound in the orthopedic ward of Haifa’s Rambam hospital, Corporal Mizrahi took consolation in the knowledge that the Merkava armor ultimately saved his life. Over the weekend, a four-man Merkava crew from his battalion was killed by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile.

Celebrated as one of the most heavily protected tanks in the world and the embodiment of the might of Israel’s ground forces, the Merkava tanks seemed to become practice targets over the last three weeks for Hezbollah anti-tank missile teams. And as a ceasefire went into effect this week, footage of smoke billowing from paralyzed Merkava tanks are likely to remain burned in the collective memory as one of the dominant images of a war gone awry.

“The tanks are a symbol in this war. In other conditions, 15 tanks could conquer a country,’’ said Eyal Hurwitz, a former infantry commando sent on special missions in Lebanon. “As an Israeli, I can’t bear to watch a tank exploding on live television. It kills us.”

At the end of a war considered by Israelis as a just fight for survival in which they were supposed to crush Hezbollah, the country turned inward with angry questions about why the army finished off a month of fighting in a disappointing stalemate.

In the middle of the war, Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz sidelined the general overseeing the ground war in Lebanon, marking the first time in more than three decades that a general had been so publicly rebuked in the middle of a war. With the war over, General Halutz himself is on the firing line.

Avshalom Vilan, a Knesset member from the dovish Meretz party, was one of the first politicians to call for a state commission of investigation like the ones set up in the aftermath of debacles in the 1982 Lebanon war and the 1973 war.

“I can’t call it a failed war, because most of the time there wasn’t even a war, except for the last four days,’’ he said. “There was an operation here, and there was an operation there.”

A week into the fighting, Mr. Vilan—a stocky veteran of Israel’s Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit—joked with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the military seemed to be taking its time.

“I told him, ‘Come on, I can’t remember a long war in the Middle East,’” he recalled. “There was an assumption that we are not limited in time, and that we have all the time we need.”

Among the myriad questions that await investigators is an explanation of just how the vaunted tank became so exposed to Hezbollah rocket fire.

Hebrew for “chariot,” the Merkava was first developed in the 1970’s by the legendary Gen. Israel Tal to ensure Israel’s superiority against rival ground forces from Egypt and Syria.

The tank was the first to be designed with its engine in the front, in order to absorb a head-on strike and protect its relatively small four-member crew. Today’s Merkavas come with a 105-millimeter cannon, two machine guns on the slab turret and a cruising speed of 50 miles an hour.

“Anyone who you talk to will say it affords greater protection to its crew than any tank in the world,’’ said Michael Oren, a military historian and senior fellow at the Shalem Center. “No tank is considered impenetrable, but it was considered Israel’s powerhouse. Here you have a tank that costs $2.5 million that is being taken out by a shell that costs $900.”

As the current conflict progressed, questions about the Merkava’s viability could even be overhead in the corridors of the Kirya, Israel’s Pentagon.

That’s partly because the tanks were operating in some of the worst possible terrain. At their strongest when dashing across flat sandy plains, the tanks in Lebanon were puttering around rocky slopes while navigating the back roads so as to stay off booby-trapped highways. And the slower the tanks, the more sluggish Israel’s ground operation against Hezbollah became.

It took Corporal Mizrahi’s crew about five hours to navigate the 15-mile trip from the Israeli border to the village of Kila.

“You always feel exposed, because it’s open territory,’’ he said. “There’s nothing much to do. They hide in these holes and jump out and open fire.”

Military experts say that Israeli intelligence knew ahead of time that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters had gotten shipments of Russian- and French-made Sagger missiles.

What isn’t clear is whether Israel’s army knew how many missiles they would face, and or about the ace firing displayed by some Hezbollah missile teams.

“They knew where to fire and how to fire,” said Corporal Mizrahi.

The Israeli army declined to provide numbers for the tanks that were hit or destroyed, though the Ha’aretz newspaper last week estimated Hezbollah had struck at least 20 tanks.

To be sure, military planners anticipated heavy losses in a ground war in Lebanon, a factor that probably played a role in the much-criticized decision to wait until last week to widen the offensive. Was the vulnerability of the tanks part of that calculation?

Rafi Noy, a former brigadier general who oversaw ground operations in Lebanon, said that the tanks became exposed because they were deployed in far too few numbers.

“When it’s one tank against one group of rocket shooters, the tank is going to be very vulnerable, and it’s going to be easy to hit,” he said. “If you send dozens of tanks in, the same tank might still be vulnerable, but at least you can smother the group of rocket launchers.”

Whatever the reason for the failures, the realizations came too late, after three weeks of devastating losses.

Back at the hospital, Corporal Mizrahi reflected, picked dead skin away from his face, and talked about his Lebanon curtain call—a march to an evacuation helicopter in a flak jacket, underwear and boots—and the unfinished business left behind.

“There are cells that we never caught. If we had more people, we could have caught them,’’ he said. “Soldiers went in there and got injured without reaching the goal. The kidnapped soldiers didn’t return. Hezbollah can rearm. And the next time, they’ll have a better knowledge of how we fight.”