Saturday, May 31, 2008

Olmert's dilemma

The big news story in Israel Thursday was the press conference given by Defense Minister and Labor Party Chief Ehud Barak regarding the legal situation of PM Ehud Olmert. Barak essentially advised Olmert to resign or take a leave-of-absence as PM while his legal case is pending. Although his rhetoric was strong and his advice critical, the significant point that all the reporters noted was that Barak did not say that HE would resign or take Labor out of the coalition unless Olmert resigned. In other words, Barak, for all his verbiage, shrank from taking any action that would precipitate Olmert's resignation.
He said that whether or not Olmert decided to resign or to hand over leadership in Kadima was up to Olmert and Kadima members. So just like Tzipi Livni after the Winograd Report, he stopped short of actually demanding Olmert resign or he/she would do something about it. This lack of either nerve or political interest results form two things. First, Barak and Livni, know that to go to new elections would mean taking a risk of losing their jobs, because the polls show that Likud with Netanyahu are way ahead of Kadima and Labor. Barak is not popular and only Livni has been given a chance of beating Netanyahu in a head-to-head contest in the polls. So Barak wants to stop short of an election, and if he causes the coalition to collapse he's afraid that's what might happen.
Eli Yishai, Head of Shas, has also asked his Torah sages to decide whether or not Shas should continue to support the coalition. This is exactly the kind of situation that Shas likes, when they are needed most, they can squeeze the greatest amount out of Olmert.
Olmert is standing tough. He immediately rejected Barack's advice and met with members of Kadima and told them that he was innocent and that he would not resign! Now the problem is that although Talansky's testimony before the court is damning, he was not cross-examined by Olmert's defense. That is scheduled to take place on July 16, after Talansky returns to the US and then comes back to Israel, and the lawyers can prepare the case based on his testimony. The prosecution also meanwhile are seeking to find out who were the other donors for whom Talansky played the role of delivery man. So Olmert can legitimately claim that so far there are only Talansky's assertions, no actual criminal case has been brought against him.
The Police also announced under pressure from Atty. Gen. Mazuz that they are speeding up their investigation of Olmert and plan to bring charges on at least one charge as soon as possible. Meanwhile Livni and other Kadima leaders are trying to organize a nw party primary preparatory to new elections to choose a leader in plce of Olmert should he decide or be forced to resign after all.
But, certainly in other western countries any hint of such a level of corruption, of receiving wads of tens of thousands of dollars, when he was Mayor of Jerusalem and Minister of Trade, that puts his reputation into serious question, would be enough to trigger a resignation (VP Agnew in teh US resigned after a similar case of receiving wads of cash while in office). In Israel this has not been the tendency, politicians stay on for as long as they can, and to hell with the country. Instead of attending to the country's affairs they attend to their own criminal cases, and they may even be suspected of mainipulating the country's situation for their own ends, for example, of announcing negotiations with Syria just at the time that the case is pending.
One can never know, but certainly a large majority of Israelis are fed up with Olmert, his popularity is around 10%, but the determining factor is what support he can retain in the Knesset, and that depends on how many MKs are prepared to give up their seats. Nevertheless, the political situation is now much more fluid and the optimists hope to see an election by next November.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home