With Bush Gone, Olmert faces Trouble

You would think that an American president would steer clear of Israeli politics. Actually, you would think that anybody in their right minds would steer clear of the snake pit of Israeli politics. But when George W. Bush met with members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet, he called Olmert “a strong political leader” and urged them to back the embattled premier. (One Israeli columnist reported that Condi passed a note to Bush telling him to pipe down. Bush read the note aloud, his Israeli hosts laughed nervously, and Bush kept right on blathering.)

The cabinet ministers purred dutifully, but the minute Bush vacated Israeli airspace, the knives came out for Olmert. You had Avigdor Lieberman, the deputy premier, threatening to pull out of the coalition if Olmert went ahead and started bargaining with the Palestinians, as Bush wants.

Then Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Labor leader, kicked up a fuss, claiming that Olmert was itching for a violent confrontation with the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Barak claimed that he had reached an accord with settler leaders to evacuate 18 outposts, but that Olmert brushed this aside, preferring a messy eviction of these hilltop settlers by the police. Olmert dismissed Barak's charges as “intolerable”, but it looks as if Barak, who aches to be prime minister again, might also pull the plug on Olmert and withdraw Labor from the governing coalition.

If Barak quits, it will be after the publication of the Winograd report later this month, which examines why Israeli generals and politicians bungled the 2006 Second Lebanon War. It is expected to issue Olmert with a scalding rebuke. But most likely Barak won't resign; polls show that the next government would be led by Barak's nemesis, Bibi Netanyahu, leader of the conservative Likud party. However much Barak shows his disdain for Olmert –-he has forbidden his generals to meet alone with the premier—he knows it's safer to play along with Olmert than bring them all tumbling down, and have Bibi come back.

---by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem