Elections?

Calev Ben-David, a writer for the Jerusalem Post, described the two Ehuds, Olmert and Barak, as two drivers playing chicken, driving rapidly towards the edge of a cliff, while each dares the other to jump first. Neither of them wants to jump, i.e. have new elections and probably lose their seats. But this was going to be forced upon them by a vote scheduled Wednesday in the Knesset, sponsored by Likud MK Silvan Shalom, to dissolve the current Knesset. Olmert had threatended to fire any Labor MK who voted for the proposition, against coalition orders. But, if he did this it would also have effectively destroyed his coalition and forced him to resign.
As reported by the Jerusalem Post, at a meeting Wednesday morning Kadima's steering committee unanimously approved an agreement with Labor whereby Kadima would hold a primary for the party's leadership by September 25 and Labor would not vote in favor of the bill to dissolve the Knesset. The agreement lead to the postponement of the vote and gave the government a much-needed lifeline. In effect Olmert won a reprieve of another three months as PM and Barak got to remain Defense Minister. This resulted in angry exchanges in the debate in hth Knesset, between the sponsors of the bill and the members of the coalition that scuttled it.
However, there are alternatives to a new election, either Olmert may rescue himself by bringing Shas on board in place of Labor, although it would be a shaky coalition and he would have to pay a high price for Shas' loyalty, or in the Kadima primary the party may choose to replace Olmert by someone else as leader of the party. That someone else is likely to be Tzipi Livni, our current FM, and she may be able to do a deal with Barak to keep the coalition alive. But, Olmert has not ruled out the possibility that he might run again in the Kadima primary (nothing precludes this), but that depends on how the corruption case against him goes, and the testimony of Morris Talansky, the American Jews who passed envelopes of money to Olmert, is due to take place in July.
Failing these possibilities, if there is a new election, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to win by a wide margin, and take the country in a new and more popular direction. Most Israelis are fed up hearing about corruption, dividing Jerusalem, withdrawals, making deals with Hamas, not including our kidnapped soldiers in deals, depending on Egypt for our security, false deals with the Palestinians, etc. Perhaps this is expecting too much from Netanyahu, who few think is a perfect candidate for PM, but at least it will represent a "change." Isn't that what someone in the US keeps preaching, and look where that got him!