This time, he’s not going to manage to stay in office. Ehud Barak is calling on Olmert to step down.
“The prime minister must detach himself from the daily management of the government. He can do so in a variety of ways: Suspension, vacation, resignation or leave of absence. This will not be determined by us,” Barak said.
Maybe then Israel will think about revising its parliamentary system, which protects incompetents and corrupt politicians who know how to play the game. Really. Imagine if Bill Clinton’s sin wasn’t having sex with an intern and then lying about it. Imagine if he took half a million dollars in cash bribes. He’d be gone in an instant. But this is at least the beginning of the fraying of the coalition keeping one of the weakest, most corrupt, least accountable Prime Ministers in Israel’s history in office. The man didn’t have the courage to take the blame for the failures of the Second Lebanon War. He blamed his generals instead.
The defense minister noted that “Olmert cannot deal with the challenges Israel faces, like Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, Iran and the kidnapped soldiers, and run his personal affairs at the same time.”
He added that “the Labor Party will not hold a stopwatch in Kadima’s face, but things have to happen as soon as possible… The State deserves stability, and therefore we must have a government in the Knesset. I am not afraid of elections. The public will decide and we will win.”
[…] A source in the Labor faction told Ynet following Barak’s press conference that if a new government is not formed within two months, his party will work towards pushing up the elections.
The source said that the timetable Barak intends to work by is limited by the current Knesset term.
I’m sure Ehud Barak thinks he’s going to be PM again. Tzipi Livni thinks the job is hers, especially after the poll saying that Kadima would take the election. But I think Israel is going to go Likud. There are too many rockets pointed at Israel, from too many directions.
Besides, it would be the biggest slap in the face to Israel’s critics. They call all Israelis who are interested in self-defense Likudniks. May as well make them right about it, for a change.
Not that it should deter the Israelis in the slightest, but if Likud forms the next government this will unleash a lot of foreign criticism that has been waiting for such an opportunity.
If you read left-wingers on Israel they often talk about the “Likudniks” they oppose…no, no, not Israel, it’s just those nasty Likudniks. They’ve been using the trope for quite a while, even though Likud hasn’t even been the main partner in the coalition. If Likud becomes the dominant faction you will see all this animus again.
But if the Israelis adapted their policies to fit the desires of western leftists, they’d cease to exist. They’d get good death notices, though.
Barak is calling for the resignation of Olmert? Now there’s the pot calling the kettle black. Didn’t he pretty much offer to concede everything Arafat was asking for? Had Arafat taken the deal, there would be no Israel today.
I’m all for anything that gets Olmert out of office, but I’m not going to believe the word of another surrender-monkey, no matter what he says.
Bill Clinton, however, is a very bad example for comparison. He has some magic that lets him get away with anything and everything, including the fact that he did take bribes – in the form of large campaign contributions from the Chinese military. Aside from some conservative pundits on the radio, nobody in the media noticed or cared.
The only trouble is that Olmert is liable to have announced Israeli surrender before then. Even if it is rejected by the Israelis, the rest of the world will pretend that it was accepted and use it as the starting point of the negotiations (sic).