Last week's demonstration in Rabin Square supposedly showed how politicians on the Right and the Left can join together when faced with a common goal of such magnitude that it dwarfs the ideological differences between them. And what is this lofty aim that managed to bridge the chasm that separates the two sides? Bringing Ehud Olmert down!

To this end, they agreed to behave like gentlemen, to remain civil and avoid mention of the issues that separate them. As if the reasons why they want a change of government are less important than the change of government itself. As if it's all about the person and not the direction. As if it doesn't matter whether Olmert is followed by someone intent on winning the next war, or on preventing it.

The airwaves are full of warnings that Olmert's failure to step down is - in the fashionable language of the day - a "threat to democracy." The real threat, however, lies in the artificial spirit of national unity that is obfuscating the principles that lie at the heart of the division between Right and Left.

The tenacity with which Olmert is clinging to his post is not a national tragedy that justifies newfound friendships among diametrically opposed political camps. One successful no-confidence motion will unseat him, and bipartisan alliances around such a move would certainly be legitimate. They must not, however, rest on a conspiracy of silence.

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