Ehud Olmert on the Ropes

The news this week that police recommended indicting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a number of charges that include fraud, breach of trust and bribe-taking came as no surprise to Israelis. In fact, it was leaked to the press two days in advance — just as the entire case, including dozens of pages of police interrogation transcripts, was leaked to the media over the past several months.

Now it is a waiting game — Attorney General Meni Mazuz must decide whether or not to accept the recommendation of the police.

Meanwhile, Olmert is doing his best to show a brave face and conduct business as usual — seemingly unfazed by the fact that he is a lame-duck prime minister who long ago lost the public’s trust. As Maariv columnist Ofer Shelach put it in an August 7 editorial (Hebrew link), Olmert has no mandate to govern. This fact will prevent him from achieving anything  in terms of diplomatic relations or domestic policy — whether it be passing the budget, or arriving at any kind of permanent settlement with the Palestinian Authority.

But Shelach does not think that Olmert has any intention of leaving office anytime soon, and most Israeli political analysts close to the story agree with him.

According to an anonymous source close to Olmert quoted in this Jerusalem Post article, the prime minister will not resign even if the attorney general decides to indict him. This flies in the face of his explicit promise, made during his Independence Day speech on May 8, to resign if indicted.

Olmert has also promised to step down after his party’s primaries on September 17. This, too, may well turn out to be a bluff. The prime minister is required by law to remain in office until his successor puts together a coalition government, which could take up to three months. If his successor — either Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or Transportation Minister (and former IDF chief of staff) Shaul Mofaz — fails to cobble together a government, which is a very possible scenario, elections will be called for sometime in March 2009. Meanwhile, Olmert will still be prime minister.

The prime minister’s advisers, who continue to insist the prime minister is not guilty of any wrongdoing, shrugged off the latest development as a predictable move that was “insignificant,” implying that the police had no choice because they had to finish what they had started.  They do not expect the attorney general to act upon the recommendation, and the have precedent on their side: a 1997 recommendation to indict then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for influence peddling was rejected.

On the day the police made their recommendation, Olmert and Labor leader Ehud Barak engaged in a very ugly exchange of personal insults during a cabinet meeting, which is filmed for television as a matter of routine. Even cynical political commentators like Channel 10’s Raviv Druker seemed shocked by the language used by the two Ehuds. But the fight was not about Olmert’s alleged corruption. Rather, it was about pending legislation, put forward by Justice Minister Friedman, that would allow the Knesset to veto Supreme Court decisions (Olmert is for; Barak is against).

As retired politician Yossi Sarid put it in his column for Haaretz newspaper, not only are the two Ehuds remarkably similar, but the two of them also resemble Netanyahu.  All three men are second-generation Israelis from idealistic, “salt of the earth” Zionist families.

Perhaps because their parents emphasized a Spartan lifestyle and a dedication to ideology, they took advantage of every opportunity to compensate for their childhood conditions when they achieved power as adults.  “They are connected by the same sturdy thread,” writes Sarid.  “The same lust for power, the same buddies on the greasy path of trickery, the same vices and weaknesses.”

Barak has recently been accused several times of corruption and influence peddling. Raviv Druker recently revealed that his wife, Nili Priel, had established a company that “sold” introductions to Israel’s 800 most influential business people — for $30,000 per introduction. The service was targeted at wealthy foreign investors. Priel closed the company as a result of a huge wave of criticism, but the smell of corruption continues to cling to Barak.

The couple’s luxury Tel Aviv apartment remains on the market for a record-breaking asking price of NIS 40 million (around $11.5 million). They bought the 350 square meter pad for $2.3 million only five years ago. So much for old-fashioned Socialist Zionist values. It is certainly true that the Tel Aviv real estate market has become increasingly expensive over the past few years, but few doubt that the real value of the Barak-Priel residence is based on its current owners’ cachet.

Meanwhile Aryeh Deri, the former leader of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party that represents the Mizrachi sector (Jews from Arab and North African countries), wants to run for mayor of Jerusalem.

Which wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that Deri served two years in prison for accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust — offenses that were deemed as involving moral turpitude. Deri was released from jail in 2002. By law, he is banned from running for public office for 10 years. But Deri, citing a loophole, has asked the head of the Central Elections Committee to make an exception for him.

Given this grim picture of avarice, megalomania and criminal behavior amongst the country’s politicians and government institutions, it’s easy to understand why Israelis have become deeply cynical about their leaders and about the rule of law. And it does not take a genius to understand that a lack of faith in a country’s democratic institutions puts that democracy at risk.