JERUSALEM: The overwhelming view in Israel on Friday, just hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared his innocence in a bribery investigation involving a Long Island businessman, was that the post-Olmert political era had already begun.Calls for his resignation came from left, right and center although all acknowledged that by vowing, as he did Thursday night, to resign if charged, Olmert had won himself time. The investigation will probably take another month or two.
| Gaza is going to explode. Lebanon currently is exploding. Syria is a constant menace. Iran is waiting in the wings. And Israel has this putz as a leader. If you want another 60 years, folks, you'd better upgrade the prime minister office real soon. |
Since Olmert has been investigated several times before and proved himself to be a highly skilled political survivor - a "Houdini," in the words of a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity - his political obituary may yet again prove premature.
But this inquiry is widely viewed as the most serious, involving allegations that hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes were passed to him by a New York businessman, Morris Talansky, over the course of a decade. Olmert said that they were legal campaign contributions and that his name would be cleared. "I look in the eye of each and every one of you and say: I never took a bribe. I never took a penny in my pocket," he said at a news conference late Thursday night.
Shalom Yerushalmi, a commentator for the newspaper Maariv, wrote Friday that while the prime minister was asking to be believed, "if the public could respond collectively it would, of course, ask: 'Why? For how many years can we hear about your escapades with the police and go on believing you?' "
Numerous analysts argued that Israel's intense security challenges could not effectively be met by a leader benefiting from such low public confidence. Peace negotiations with the Palestinians, a process that President George W. Bush is hoping to bolster by coming here next week, and moves toward Syria require hard decisions, especially in the wake of the violent Hezbollah takeover of parts of Beirut on Friday.
"Until now, Olmert was threatened but surviving, and it seemed he needed the peace negotiations as a source of strength, which Palestinian negotiators appreciated," said Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian lecturer in cultural studies at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. "But now it feels like he is headed out, and that is very bad news for the negotiations. For Hamas, of course, which has long said the peace talks were useless, this will be a plus, another chance to say, 'I told you so.' "
Abraham Friedman, a former civil service commissioner and now dean of management studies at the Center for Academic Studies or Yehuda, said that both right and left had reason to seek Olmert's departure. "On the right, they are afraid that he is so desperate that he will be willing to agree with the Syrians on things he wouldn't otherwise," Friedman said. "On the left, they may want the peace to move forward, but they have made a big issue of fighting corruption in government. So the pressure is from both sides."
Yuval Steinitz, a member of the opposition Likud party in Parliament, took the opportunity to condemn the entire foreign policy of Olmert and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. "Today we can see clearly that Olmert and Livni deluded us and maybe themselves when, after the second Lebanon war two years ago, they said that Hezbollah had become much weaker," Steinitz said. "Today we see it was a lie."
In that month-long war, Israel fought against Hezbollah, which, like Hamas in Gaza, is heavily supported by Iran and seeks Israel's destruction. "We may end up with an Iranian mini-state in Lebanon as well as one in Gaza, and the political trouble in Jerusalem makes it much harder for Israel to react as it should," Steinitz added. "But, of course, this is not just a problem for Israel but for the whole Western world, especially the United States and France."
In theory, even if Olmert steps down at some point, the government could continue under Livni. The Labor Party, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, says that for now it will stay in the government and not cause it to fall.
Regarding the talks with the Palestinians, Asher Arian, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and a public opinion expert, said Olmert's situation was paradoxical. "People are interested in peace, but not in 'peace' in inverted commas - not any peace at any price," he said. "It seems to me there were big doubts about the package he was about to produce. So he begins from a very weak position, and this blow weakens him even more."
If it is harder for Olmert to make peace, there remains the possibility of his making war - a major incursion into Gaza, for example, that could unify a country faced with rockets and border attacks from the Hamas-controlled area.
But that seemed even less likely, because taking a country's soldiers to war requires an esteemed leader. "Constitutionally, of course, he has the legitimacy," Arian said. "Morally, it's a problem."