Olmert Averts Split in Coalition

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 25, 2008; 9:42 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062500068.html?hpid=topnews

JERUSALEM, June 25 -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bought himself more time in office Wednesday, fending off a rebellion by coalition partners who had threatened to bring down his government if he did not resign amid a burgeoning corruption probe.

But in exchange for keeping his coalition together temporarily, Olmert was forced to allow internal elections in his centrist Kadima party by late September. Rivals within Kadima are already jockeying for his job, and it is unclear if Olmert will even run.

Olmert has been fighting for his political life for nearly two months, ever since allegations surfaced that he had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars -- much of it in cash -- from a New York business executive. Olmert has denied all wrongdoing, but testimony last month by the businessman, Morris Talansky, was considered especially damaging. Since then, Olmert has faced calls from erstwhile allies for him to step aside.

The most serious challenge to his authority has come from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who leads Kadima's largest coalition partner, the center-left Labor party. Barak had vowed to support a bill to dissolve the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The vote was scheduled for Wednesday, and with Labor's support, the bill would have almost certainly passed. A last-minute deal in which Kadima agreed to a party primary within three months averted the showdown.

Olmert's term is slated to run until 2010, but if he sits out or loses the primary it would effectively end his 2 1/2 year premiership. It would also likely trigger new elections. Neither Kadima nor Labor is believed to be eager for that, however, since polls show the right-wing Likud party beating them both.

Olmert is hoping the extra time he won Wednesday will give him the chance to exonerate himself in court before any decisions are made about his political future. Talansky's cross-examination, scheduled for mid-July, is considered especially critical to that effort. Olmert is also hoping to push forward with a flurry of diplomatic initiatives, including negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and Syria.

"We have stability for the coming months," said Olmert spokesman Mark Regev. "There are very serious issues on the table, and we now have the time to move forward."

Talks with the radical Islamist group Hamas, mediated by Egypt, have already borne fruit in the form of a six-month cease-fire in Gaza. That truce was rattled on Tuesday, however, when the armed group Islamic Jihad fired three rockets from Gaza in response to an Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Nablus that left two of the group's members dead.

In retaliation for the rocket fire, Israel on Wednesday closed all commercial crossings leading to the coastal strip and would not say when they would reopen. Under the terms of the truce, Israel is supposed to gradually loosen the strict economic embargo that it imposed a year ago, when Hamas toppled a unity government with the rival Fatah party and took control of the territory.

Hamas said Israel's decision to close the crossings represented a violation of the truce. But Hamas also said it planned to continue to honor the week-old cease-fire, and the lack of an Israeli military response suggested that it does as well.

The truce is controversial in both Israel and Gaza, with hard-line critics in each place arguing that now is not the time for quiet.

Retired Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of the Israel Defense Forces, said that instead of holding its fire, Israel should be conducting targeted killings and medium-scale military operations so that, ultimately, Hamas "will cry for [a truce] without conditions."

Yaalon doubts the current ceasefire will last.

"It's not a stabilized situation, and it's not going to last for six months," he said.