Olmert's Government

Ehud Olmert's coalition Government was officially voted in by the Knesset
yesterday. He combined Kadima with the Pensioner's Party, forming the largest
bloc with 36 seats. With Labor's 19 and the addition of Shas with 12 seats to
the coalition that put the Government over the top with 67 seats out of 120.
Surprisingly Israel Beiteinu and UTJ on the right have not joined, and neither
has Meretz on the left, but Olmert is still in negotiations with them.
Olmert gave his maiden speech as PM, and it was quite a good speech, in which
he emphasized two things, his social economic policy of reducing the gap
between rich and poor, and his intention of negotiating with the Palestinians
and if this fails then deciding Israel's permanent borders unilaterally. This
is based on his so-called "convergence" plan, although because of the lack of
clarity of this term (it sounds like a mathematical formula) his aides have
suggested that the English translation now be known as the "consolidation"
plan, that implies more correctly the intention of consolidating all the
small scattered settlements into a few major blocs. He said that these blocs
will become a permanent part of Israel, so that in effect the process started
by PM Sharon will be brought to fruition, in which Israel gives up territory,
including that inhabited by most of the Palestinians, in order to permanently
consolidate its control over the major areas of dense Jewish settlement.
In doing this, the idea is to separate out the Jewish and Arab populations, so
that when Israel's final borders are drawn they will incorporate the maximum
number of Jews and exclude the maximum number of Arabs. In this way Olmert
hopes to avoid the so-called "demographic bomb" of high Arab population
increase. In order to carry this plan through, Olmert announced that he will
meet with leaders of the settlement movement and will negotiate with them on
how to carry out this plan. Since the number of potential evacuees from the
West Bank is ca. 8 times that removed from Gaza, the cooperation of the
settler movement is essential for the success of this plan. Also, the
Government will try to avoid some of the mistakes made in the Gaza withdrawal,
particularly the treatment of the evacuees after they were removed from Gaza.
This time it will be necessary to have a plan of where the evacuees will be
resettled before they leave their homes.
As a condition of joining the coalition Shas insisted on the attachment of a
letter to the agreement giving them the right to vote against the Government
policy of further disengagement from the West Bank. This tends to make the
Coalition seem shaky. Also, the Government approved rises in the price of
bread and gasoline in its first week in office, not a very good omen for its
economic policies. Some analysts give it a 50:50 chance of lasting two
years, about the average for recent Israeli Governments. Olmert is an
experienced politician, although in the past he failed to achieve his
potential.
Next week he is off to see Pres. Bush in the US, then he will meet with Hosni
Mubarak of Egypt, and then with Pres Abbas of the PA. After this initial round
of talks we will see whether or not it looks as if he can keep his Government
alive.