Jericho Operation

The IDF went into Jericho and took the bad guys out of PA jail right before they were going to be set free by the new Hamas government.
For those that don't remember, there was an international agreement which included British and US troops to guard these prisoners as a condition for them remaining in PA jail. The international jail guards left yesterday, probably because they were afraid of getting kidnapped or killed, and the IDF swooped in and asked them nicely to either surrender or die. They nicely decided to surrender.

During an election campaign this kind of operation is looked at very cynically. Nobody believes that Olmert did this to gain points for his campaign. This was the kind of action that was required and this was the only time to do it. Some would say that he got lucky in having an operation like this fall into his lap.

However, we can not get out of the political mangling so quickly. Why did the US and British guards decide to leave exactly 2 weeks before the elections? Was there some sort of secret agreement between the Israel,US, Britain and the PA? Is this the real reason why Mazen was out of the country? Can we see Shimon Peres working behind the scenes convincing them to leave so that Olmert could gain political points?

I don't see any reason to think otherwise.

This is one of the rare cases where political sleaze actually benefited Israel. Putting those guys behind Israeli bars is going to do a lot for Israeli morale and the war against terror.