RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, 17 March 2007 — Officials close to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that the behavior of Foreign Minster Tzipi Livni at the previous evening’s Kadima rally stemmed from “narrow political considerations.” Livni was the only senior member of the party not to publicly and explicitly declare support for Olmert, choosing instead to issue a general call of unity to the party’s ranks.
While all the other Kadima parliamentarians who addressed the conference rallied round Olmert and reaffirmed their support for him, Livni evaded the topic and chose to focus her speech on party unity. Livni stressed the importance of party unity and omitted any mention of Olmert. “To those who anticipate a split in the party, we have to give a short answer: we are staying together,” said Livni, after Olmert had pledged to serve the full four years of his term, even as he told party members in Israeli city of Petah Tikva Thursday: “I’m not a popular prime minister.”
Olmert’s aides said they were surprised by the content of Livni’s speech and severely criticized her decision. “All of the party’s top members stood behind the prime minister and managed to rise above their own political concerns — except for Livni. It’s too bad. The political situation isn’t easy for anyone, but there were those who knew to do the right thing and support the prime minister, and those who didn’t,” an Olmert aide commented to Israeli media sources.
But behind the scenes, many senior Kadima officials have recently begun talking about the need to replace Olmert in order to stop the party’s collapse in the polls. According to an Israel Radio poll broadcast Thursday, Livni is the leading candidate to replace Olmert if is he is forced to quit over last summer’s war in Lebanon.
Olmert may be forced to resign when the Winograd Committee, which is investigating the war, issues interim findings in April. The committee has said it would focus on “individual conclusions” regarding the responsibility of Olmert and other top officials for the war on Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Army said yesterday it was investigating the alleged use by soldiers of Palestinian civilians as human shields during a recent operation in the West Bank town of Nablus.
A statement said the army’s procurator general, Brig. Gen. Avihai Mandelbit, “has ordered the military police to investigate charges that Israeli forces broke the rules and used civilians during an operation in Nablus two weeks ago.”
In October 2005, Israel’s Supreme Court banned the use of human shields as being contrary to international law.
