an ultimatum

An ultimatum has been given that Israel better release the arab prisoners by 6 AM Tuesday or...
Or what? Or they're going to kill our soldier? Why don't they tell us the or what? It's very hard to take an ultimatum seriously if you don't know what the consequences are for not meeting their deadline. They could have made the same demands last month without kidnapping a soldier. "Free the prisoners by Friday or we're gonna git you."

If it does have to do with the soldier then they should specify what we should be worried about.

That's one perspective.

On the other side, the Israeli leadership is taking the ultimatum seriously and are discussing it at the highest levels. Olmert and Peretz. Peretz believes that negotiations will always win. Of course, we might have expected the Israeli Jimmy Hoffa to destroy Gaza first and then say "lets negotiate." But no, unfortunately the tactics that he had no problem using against the Israeli people to try and get his workers fine leather duck boots are invalid when trying to free a soldier from the grasp of the evil palestinians.

Meanwhile Kadima is in crisis according to a Haaretz report. They still have not built any institutions or policies and are quickly losing the support of their mayoral infrastructure.

In government, also according to a Haaretz report, everyone is working on their own civil marriage bill. It looks like the final bill will only allow people who are not disallowed from marrying by religious law but still can not get married by religious law to get married. So from what I understand of this article mamzerim will not be allowed to get married but a Jew will be able to marry a non Jew or a kohen will be able to marry a divorcee or something like that. Howevr someone who can get married in the framework of Jewish law will not be allowed to use this register.

So if a couple wants to get married civilly because they hate religion they would have to first get married to someone else and then cheat with each other, thus violating Jewish law and forbidding each other to get married to each othr which will then allow them to marry each other civilly. Maybe.