RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, 16 October 2007 — Israel’s political opposition yesterday stepped up its calls for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign with the beleaguered head of government facing a record three police investigations.
Left- and right-wing politicians charged that Olmert is no longer able to run the country adequately while he faces three consecutive police inquiries into allegations of wrongdoing before he assumed top office last year.
The chairman of Israeli State’s Control Committee, and member of Parliament Zevulun Orlev called on Olmert to suspend himself, a day after Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz ordered police to launch a third criminal investigation into the affairs of the prime minister.
Orlev also called on Olmert to urge Mazuz and the police to accelerate the investigations in order to bring them to a swift conclusion.
“No one can manage to run a country with three investigations underway against him, in addition to the Winograd report (on the failures of Israeli government during the July War on Lebanon),” he told the Israel Radio. Member of Israeli Knesset (parliament) of Labor party Ophir Paz-Pines also called on Olmert to immediately suspend himself.
“Olmert should resign until the investigations are over... His staying in power is to the detriment of our citizenry,” said Orlev from the extreme-right National Union party. Zehava Gal-On, a lawmaker for the secular left-wing Meretz party, reached across the political divide to agree. “The prime minister is no longer capable of taking crucial decisions for the future,” she said.
In an interview with the Israeli Army Radio, the Labor MK, who resigned as a minister in October 2006 after the right-wing party Israel Beiteinu joined the coalition, also called on Labor to pull out of the government.
The investigation will deal with various allegations involving conflict of interest, cronyism and political appointments of several unqualified Likud Central Committee members to key positions in various businesses allegedly perpetrated by Olmert during the period in which he served as minister of industry and commerce between 2003 and 2005 under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Olmert is preparing for a US-sponsored peace conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas next month that has revived hopes of advancing the Middle East peace process after almost seven years of deadlock.
The Justice Ministry announced the third police investigation into Olmert — over alleged political appointments while he was trade and industry minister — on Sunday shortly after he met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The premier already faces police probes into allegations that he abused his authority in the privatization of a major bank in 2005 and effectively received a bribe in the cut-price purchase of a luxury Jerusalem home in 2004. Olmert, who is not required to step down over any of the investigations, said in response on Sunday that all three probes were “unnecessary.”
“This pattern will not stop the prime minister from being personally involved and performing his duties in all the fields he is responsible for,” his office said. Nevertheless the burgeoning police files into the 62-year-old premier, who had recently reversed slightly the trend of historically low approval ratings, have elicited concern within his own centrist Kadima party.
“It’s all very embarrassing and I hope this circus affecting all heads of government in Israel will soon end... But it’s clear that if there are judicial proceedings against Olmert he should resign,” said MP Otniel Schneller. Olmert is the fourth sitting prime minister to be subjected to a criminal investigation, but the first to face three simultaneous police inquiries.
The only premier ever to resign in similar circumstances was Yitzhak Rabin, who stepped down from his first period in office in 1977 following press reports that his wife had an illegal overseas bank account.
Olmert has also been the only senior leader to survive resignation calls after a government commission investigating the 2006 war in Lebanon listed widespread failures, in interim findings it released in April. His broad based coalition enjoys a comfortable majority of 78 lawmakers in the 120-seat Parliament.
