Summary

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is being investigated for bribery and tax evasion. His popularity has plummeted, and he may be indicted within the month in which case he has pledged to resign. Olmert’s precarious position has emboldened his approach to peace negotiations with the PLO, Hamas, and Syria. At the same time, these peace talks are hollow, and any agreement would suffer from illegitimacy, and be rescinded.

Analysis
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may lose his job during the next eight weeks. Public fury over allegations of bribe taking and tax evasion has reached a fever pitch. Members of Israel’s National Fraud Unit have been dispatched to the United States to investigate businessman and fundraiser, Moshe Talansky, and the origin of approximately $150,000, which Olmert accepted during his tenure as mayor of Jerusalem (1993-2003). Moreover, leaders within Olmert’s centrist party, Kadima, have called on Olmert to be replaced, and leaders of the Labour Party (which has the second most seats in the governing coalition) have begun preparing themselves for an election. Recent polling reveals that 54% of Israelis want a snap election.

Admitting that he took the money, but denying everything else, Olmert’s strategy has been to steam full ahead with issues capable of displacing corruption headlines. Witness therefore, the recrudescence of Syrian peace negotiations, multiple meetings with Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, and indirect ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, who control the West Bank.

Olmert’s strategy comes directly from the playbook of his comrade, former Prime Minster and Kadima party founder, Ariel Sharon. It was Sharon, dogged throughout his career and until his stroke in 2006 by corruption investigations, who nonetheless orchestrated the momentous Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Olmert will not replicate any such feat. The Syrian diplomatic track, for all the press it has received, will ease some tensions, which were raised after Israel’s April bombing of an alleged nuclear site in Syria, but nothing more: The Israeli public is unprepared to trust Syria or relinquish the Golan Heights. Syria is unprepared to renounce Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. And the Bush administration is dead set against letting Syria regain its influence in Lebanon. Yet, all of this would have to occur as part of a Syria-Israel peace agreement.

Olmert’s discussions with Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas have become regular and even friendly. Indeed, the Fatah negotiating team much prefers Olmert to the two likely alternatives, Tzipi Livni (Kadima’s Foreign Affairs and Justice minister) and Binyamin Netanyahu (leader of opposition Likud party), should Olmert resign. Netanyahu has gone so far as to declare that he would revoke any such agreement if elected, and polls indicate he would be. Thus, while Olmert’s beleaguered status gives impetus to talks, it simultaneously makes a final deal unrealistic. Both Abbas and Olmert have recently downgraded expectations from a peace agreement to a “declaration of principles”.

On the third diplomatic track, Olmert is negotiating (via Egypt) a six-month truce with Hamas. Given the level of cynicism on all sides, it is doubtful that a truce would hold even if Olmert remains in power. Even so, peace negotiations with Hamas and the rest will continue on, and remain surreal, until the allegations against Olmert resolve conclusively.

Ian Speigel is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com