Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday January 26, 2007

Katsav scandal explodes as Olmert’s still simmers

by leslie susser & dan baron
jta

jerusalem | Scandal-mongering in Israel appears to be catching up with those accused of either wrongdoing or malfeasance.

Israel President Moshe Katsav, 61, took a leave of absence midweek after the attorney general announced he will be indicted for rape. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is facing his own corruption investigation, immediately called for Katsav to resign, and the Knesset started impeachment proceedings.

As president of Israel, Katzav holds basically a ceremonial position. The real governing of Israel is left up to Olmert and the Knesset. If found guilty, Katsav could face 16 years in prison and go down in history as the first incumbent Israeli president to face such serious charges.

Katsav’s legal woes, on top of those faced by others in Israel’s government, has sparked a squall of recrimination that suggests many in the Jewish state yearn for the sort of high-level purge that might finally set the country straight.

A Haifa University poll found that just 7 percent of Israelis feel “great” or “very great” confidence in Katsav, while 79 percent feel “little” or “very little” confidence in him. The figures closely mirrored surveys on the plunging popularity of Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz since the Lebanon war.

The loss of faith in Olmert has already taken one victim last week with the sudden resignation of the Israeli army’s chief of staff, who faced accusations of misguiding Israel’s war with Lebanon.

Pundits are asking how much longer Olmert can survive.

Under investigation for corruption and with his approval ratings at an all-time low, Olmert is facing increasing public pressure to quit. He is suspected of rigging a tender for the sale of Bank Leumi, Israel’s second largest bank, when he was finance minister in 2005-06.

But things could get even worse for him if the Winograd Commission, which is investigating last summer’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is critical of his role when it presents preliminary findings at the end of the month.

The fact that Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz chose to resign clearly marks last summer’s war in Lebanon as a failure. And the fact that he has already gone puts the Winograd spotlight on those up the line — Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Olmert himself.

The Winograd mandate includes asking the big questions: Why did the prime minister go to war so hastily, just hours after the ostensible casus belli, the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon? Why didn’t Olmert pressure the army to launch a major ground strike earlier in the campaign to stop rocket fire on Israeli civilians? And why didn’t the government do more to move civilians out of the line of fire?

Yoel Marcus, the doyen of Israeli political analysts, says the perceived failure in the war, the corruption clouds and the absence of clear leadership on peacemaking with the Palestinians or the Syrians has spawned a dark public mood that the Olmert administration will not survive.

“In this grim atmosphere, the public is not going to sit back and allow the chief of staff to take all the blame for the second Lebanon War while the political leaders who initiated and planned it are let off the hook,” Marcus wrote in Ha’aretz.

Even if Olmert is innocent, critics say he won’t be able to govern because he’ll be busy trying to clear his name.

Ironically, although Olmert is probably the most unpopular prime minister in Israeli history, he has one of the strongest coalitions based on the support of 78 of the 120 Knesset members.

So how could he be forced out of office? One way would be for a majority of 61 Knesset members to vote for early elections. But since many of them are unlikely to be re-elected, pundits reckon the chances of that happening any time soon are remote.

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.