HELL ON EARTH
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BARACK OLMERT SHOULD RESIGN
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Israel's FM and number two challenges Olmert by Patrick Moser MAY 29,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's foreign minister and Kadima party number two challenged Ehud Olmert's party leadership on Thursday, calling for an unprecedented primary amid demands he quit as premier over graft suspicions. Kadima should start preparing now for any possible scenario, including elections. I am a big believer in primaries, said Tzipi Livni, who is also deputy prime minister.I believe most of the public should be involved in the election of the (party) leadership. This way we will be able to retrieve the public's support in Kadima, she told reporters in Jerusalem.At no point, however, did Livni explicitly call for Olmert to step down as party leader or as premier.Kadima, founded hastily by former prime minister Ariel Sharon before the March 2006 elections, does not have an internal mechanism for ousting a leader or holding leadership elections.Israel has been abuzz with speculation about a snap election in late 2008 or early 2009.That began after a key ally in the government coalition, Defence Minister and Labour party leader Ehud Barak , joined calls for Olmert to step down over allegations he illegally received large sums of cash from a US financier.
Barak reiterated his message a day later on Thursday: The prime minister should take decisions, his party needs to take decisions. If they don't, we will make those decisions for them.Rina Mazliah, a political commentator with the privately run Channel 2 news, summed up the situation by saying: Ehud Barak placed the gun on the table and Livni put the bullet down.As the pressure on Olmert mounted, Attorney General Menahem Mazuz decided after a meeting with the state prosecution on Thursday to speed up the investigation, the justice ministry said.We can't ignore recent days' events. The issue is not only legal, it is not only a criminal question, Livni said. These are not the prime minister's personal issues. These are questions of values and norms we want to apply.Olmert, whose term ends in late 2010, has said he had no intention of quitting, although an opinion poll on Thursday found that 70 percent of people surveyed thought he should go.I am going to continue to exercise my functions, the embattled prime minister said on Wednesday.Some people think that each time an investigation is launched, it has to lead to a resignation. But I don't share that opinion -- and I am not going to give up.However, if Olmert were to be indicted over the latest scandal, he would be legally bound to step aside.Olmert, 62, has denied any wrongdoing over the allegations that have been simmering since police first questioned him in the affair on May 2. He has, however, acknowledged receiving campaign donations.
But experts say it will be difficult for him to focus on peace talks with the Palestinians and indirect negotiations with Syria while fighting for his own political survival.Opposition lawmakers have also claimed that the scandal-tainted premier lacks the moral authority to lead peace efforts that could shape the future of the Middle East. Olmert, who flies to Washington on Monday for a three-day visit and a meeting with US President George W. Bush, has asked Kadima MPs not to do anything until his return, Maariv newspaper reported. Barak, himself a former premier, said that unless Kadima acts to form a new government, with Labour's support, we will work to decide on a new agreed early date for elections.Without the support of Labour's 19 MPs Olmert's coalition would lose its parliamentary majority in the 120-member Knesset. Barak dropped his political bombshell a day after Jewish-American financier Morris Talansky testified before a Jerusalem court that he had given Olmert large amounts of cash stuffed into envelopes. Talansky said he had given Olmert at least 150,000 dollars in the 15 years before he became prime minister in 2006, some of which might have been used to fund Olmert's taste for luxury goods. Olmert faces three more police inquiries into suspected corruption involving potential conflicts of interest, fraudulent property transactions and abuse of power linked to political appointments.
Olmert unmoved by demand he step aside By Jeffrey Heller
MAY 29,08
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responded with a business-as-usual approach on Thursday to a demand by his defense minister that he step aside over corruption allegations. But his deputy, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said their Kadima party should take decisions and start preparing for any scenario, including an early general election and an internal leadership vote.
Livni, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, is widely seen as a top candidate to replace Olmert. In her public remarks, Livni did not call for Olmert to step down, but said values and norms must be upheld in Israeli politics.Stepping up the pressure, defense Minister Ehud Barak told members of his left-leaning Labor faction that if the prime minister failed to act, Labor would force the issue.The prime minister has to make decisions. Factions have to make decisions, and if they don't, we will make the decisions for them, said Barak, whose party is Olmert's largest coalition partner.Olmert has made clear through aides that he has no intention of stepping down. At a welcoming ceremony for Denmark's prime minister on Thursday, he made no reference to Barak's call to go on leave or quit.I intend to discuss with the visiting prime minister ... the international effort to stop Iran's nuclear (program), the regional peace process, the war against terror and the strengthening of radical Islam in the Middle East and worldwide, Olmert said, hitting his usual talking points.Olmert plans a three-day visit to Washington next week for talks with U.S. President George W. Bush and a speech to the annual policy conference of a pro-Israel lobbying group.Barak threatened on Wednesday to pursue an early election -- bringing political turmoil that could derail Israeli-Palestinian peace talks -- after a U.S. businessman told an Israeli court he had handed Olmert envelopes with thousands of dollars in cash.Amid the political uncertainty, Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz convened prosecutors and police officers on Thursday to discuss the way forward in the investigation against Olmert.Mazuz issued a statement after the meeting saying the investigation would be speeded up in order to complete it as soon as possible. He gave no precise timeframe for a decision on whether to indict the prime minister.Olmert has ridden out similar storms in the past. He has pledged to resign if charged and denied any wrongdoing in accepting what he has described as above-board election campaign contributions.
HAZY
Barak, a former prime minister, has been hazy on what steps he might take, and when.He stopped short of making a move that would immediately bring down the government and trigger a snap election. Polls suggest the right-wing Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu would defeat Labor if a ballot, not due until 2010, were held now.A top Likud lawmaker, former foreign minister Silvan Shalom, predicted new elections would be held in November.A cartoon in Israel's most popular newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, illustrated what some commentators saw as Barak's failure to take stronger action.It showed Barak wearing bunny ears and holding a carrot, an allusion to Hebrew slang in which rabbit means coward.The American Jewish businessman at the centre of the case, Morris Talansky, is due back in Israel in July, when he will be cross-examined by Olmert's lawyers. Chief prosecutor Moshe Lador said after Talansky testified on Tuesday it was too early to tell if charges would be brought against Olmert.(Additional reporting by Avida Landau and Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Andrew Roche)
Tutu blasts international complicity over Gaza MAY 29,08
GAZA CITY (AFP) - South African Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu on Thursday denounced what he called the international community's silence and complicity over the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip. My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all, Tutu said at the end of a three-day UN fact-finding mission to the impoverished Palestinian territory.Gaza needs the engagement of the outside world, especially its peacemakers, the Anglican archbishop said at a news conference.The overcrowded sliver of land is strangled by a tight blockade and faced with almost daily military raids which Israel says are aimed at forcing militants to halt rocket and mortar attacks.I think what we've seen shows plenty of evidence of at least the possibility of war crimes that needs much further independent investigation, said British professor Christine Chinkin, who travelled to Gaza with Tutu.I would certainly say the concept of collective punishment in a situation of occupation constitutes the notion of war crimes and possibly of a crime against humanity, she said in reference to the Israeli-imposed embargo.Tutu and Chinkin were in Gaza on a UN fact-finding mission into the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians in a 2006 Israeli artillery attack.Following an internal investigation, Israel concluded that shelling the civilians' homes was a rare and grave technical error of the artillery radar system, and announced in February that no charges would be brought against Israeli forces involved in the incident.
During the visit, Tutu also urged a senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to end rocket attacks against Israel.He told journalists he asked dismissed Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya: Can you stop the firing of rockets into Israel? Tutu, who was a prominent anti-apartheid activist when South Africa was still under white minority rule, also urged bith sides in the Gaza conflict to sit down and negotiate.Israel refuses to talk directly to Hamas because it blacklists the Islamist group as a terrorist organisation, but Egypt has been mediating between the two in a bid to achieve a truce in and around the Gaza Strip.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
US presses UN to broaden nuclear search in Syria: report Thu May 29, 10:05 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is pressing UN inspectors to broaden a search for secret nuclear sites in Syria to check if it has other hidden facilities beyond an alleged reactor destroyed by Israel, The Washington Post reported Thursday. US officials have given information on three suspect sites to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, which is negotiating with Syria for permission to conduct inspections in the country, the Post said, citing US government officials and Western diplomats.US officials want to know if the suspect sites were support facilities for the alleged Al Kibar reactor, which Washington says was built with North Korean help, the daily said.Officials declined to describe the suspect sites or discuss how they were identified, the newspaper said.Western governments have long wanted to identify possible locations for a facility in Syria that might have supplied fuel rods for a reactor, it said.The Al Kibar site, while described as nearly operational when it was bombed, had no clear source of uranium fuel needed for operation, the Post said, citing US intelligence officials and diplomats familiar with the site.The US government charges that the reactor, which was destroyed in an Israeli air raid on September 6, had a military purpose.Syria has denied the US allegations and has promised full cooperation with the UN watchdog.
CIA Director Michael Hayden told the Post that the intelligence community's insight into Syria's nuclear ambitions had deepened since the Israeli raid.Do not assume that Al Kibar exhausted our knowledge of Syrian efforts with regard to nuclear weapons, Hayden was quoted as saying.I am very comfortable -- certainly with Al Kibar and what was there, and what the intent was. It was the highest confidence level. And nothing since the attack last September has changed our mind, he said.In fact, events since the attack give us even greater confidence as to what it was.Hayden predicted that Syria would almost certainly attempt to delay and deceive the IAEA.
German foreign minister due in Mideast Thu May 29, 8:51 AM ET
BERLIN, May 29, 2008 (AFP) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday he will visit the Middle East this week for talks on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and political stability in Lebanon. Steinmeier told the Bundestag lower house of parliament in a debate marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel that the trip beginning Saturday would take in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah.
He will return to Berlin Wednesday.
Steinmeier hailed the election of new Lebanese President Michel Sleiman Sunday which he said created the conditions for rebuilding the country after years of strife.He also welcomed indirect talks between Israel and Syria and said visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan would brief him on his knowledge of the discussions in Berlin Friday.Germany has played a key role in reviving efforts by the so-called Middle East quartet -- grouping the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- to help bring about a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.Berlin has invited foreign ministers from the Middle East, Europe, the United States and several other countries to a conference on June 24 on efforts to assist the Palestinians on build up their police forces and justice system as steps toward creating a viable state.
Steinmeier said the Nazis' slaughter of six million European Jews during World War II meant it had a particular responsibility for helping to ensure Israel's security alongside a Palestinian state.
The engagement for the future derives from the responsibility for the past, he said.
Dozens captured in Israeli incursion in Gaza: witnesses Thu May 29, 4:02 AM ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Dozens of Palestinians were captured before dawn on Thursday in an Israeli military incursion in the northern Gaza Strip, witnesses said. Israeli troops used loudspeakers to order residents of the Beit Hanun area aged 16 to 60 to gather in a square, and then took away about 60 of them, according to Mohammed al-Kafarneh, who said he witnessed the incident.The Palestinian Ramattan news agency said one of its cameramen, Ashraf al-Kafarneh, was among those captured.An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the raid.During a routine activity by the Israeli army in the north of the Gaza Strip, about 60 wanted Palestinians were taken by security services to be interrogated, the spokesman told AFP.
Witnesses said armoured military bulldozers destroyed farmland during the incursion.Meanwhile, a 29-year-old Palestinian civilian died of his wounds on Thursday, one day after he was hit by Israeli gunfire in southern Gaza, the head of Gaza emergency services said.
Israel launches almost daily attacks in the Gaza Strip and imposes a tight blockade on the Palestinian territory in a bid to force militants to halt rocket fire targeting the Jewish state.Israel and the Hamas movement that rules the impoverished territory are engaged in indirect negotiations over a possible truce, with Egypt acting as a go-between.At least 486 people, nearly all Palestinians and the majority of them militants, have been killed since the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in November at a US-sponsored conference, according to an AFP count.
Lebanon president names Siniora as PM of unity cabinet by Jocelyne Zablit Wed May 28, 10:26 PM ET
BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanon's newly appointed premier Fuad Siniora prepared for consultations Thursday with various parliamentary blocs on forming a 30-member cabinet, which will include the Hezbollah-led opposition. Siniora, 64, was appointed by the new Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Wednesday to a government of national unity.Based on his consultations with members of parliament ... the president has asked Fuad Siniora to form a new government, the presidency said.The opposition made it clear it was not satisfied with the choice of Siniora, saying he did not reflect the spirit of national unity called for in last week's Arab-brokered accord reached in Doha.His nomination is a recipe for conflict rather than reconciliation, Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun warned.It seems the ruling bloc, rather than battling for a new Lebanon, is seeking to unleash a new conflict.He added, however, that his camp would not stand in the way of forming a new government.A Sunni Muslim and close ally of slain former premier Rafiq Hariri, Siniora has been prime minister since 2005 and headed a caretaker government since Sleiman's election by parliament on Sunday.That earlier, US-backed administration was crippled by a long-running opposition protest campaign.Siniora will be working to form a coalition government in which the Hezbollah-led opposition will have veto power over key decisions.
But he said he would seek to bridge the gaps among all the rival parties as he embarks on a new term and seeks to form a government of national unity.I extend my hand for cooperation and solidarity so that our country can achieve the breakthroughs it deserves, he said.He said he hoped all parties would draw the lessons from past events that must not be repeated.I call on all of you to heal the wounds and to overcome the divisions we have experienced and not to resort to violence to solve our problems, he said.Of the 127 members in parliament, 68 MPs gave Siniora their backing on Wednesday.The formation of a unity government is a key plank of a deal hammered out by rival factions last week to end an 18-month political crisis that boiled over into deadly fighting and threatened to plunge the nation into a new civil war.Under the deal , the ruling bloc will hold 16 seats in the new cabinet and the opposition 11, with the president appointing three ministers.
Parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri said his bloc had decided to nominate Siniora again as he was the best man for the job. We didn't name Siniora as a challenge (to the opposition) but as a move toward real reconciliation and to turn over a new page, he told reporters. Much of Siniora's previous term was dominated by the standoff with the opposition, which withdrew its ministers from his government in late 2006 in a bid to force him to resign.
Analysts said the parliamentary majority decided to keep Siniora in his post to allow Hariri, the son of Rafiq Hariri, to prepare for legislative elections next year. Sleiman, Lebanon's army chief for the past 10 years, formally appointed Siniora after wrapping up consultations on Wednesday and the new government is expected to be formed within a week. Sleiman's election on Sunday followed the deal brokered in the Qatari capital that also gives veto power to the opposition and calls for a new electoral law. The accord was reached after sectarian battles earlier this month left at least 65 people dead and saw Hezbollah stage a spectacular takeover of Sunni sectors of west Beirut. The violence, sparked by government measures against Hezbollah that were eventually rescinded, was the worst sectarian unrest since the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.
If Olmert is toast, so is Bush bid to broker peace deal By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer Wed May 28, 6:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON - If Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is toast in a corruption scandal, so is President Bush's effort to broker a Mideast peace deal by the time he leaves office. Time and patience were running short for U.S.-backed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians before Olmert's simmering political troubles boiled over this week. If Olmert is forced out, there will be little time and perhaps even less appetite among all sides to start over.Israel's powerful defense minister, Ehud Barak, who is presumed to want Olmert's job, said Wednesday the prime minister should step aside because of his political or legal distractions. Barak threatened to bring down the government if Olmert doesn't comply.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused comment to Wednesday on the unfolding political drama, and the State Department put on a game face.
We firmly believe and are fully committed to helping the Israelis and Palestinians achieve a peace agreement by the end of the year, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. We have committed to supporting their efforts. They have committed to reaching that agreement. That is where we were yesterday, that's where we were today, and I expect that's where we'll be tomorrow.Students of previous, failed negotiations said Olmert's precarious position could let the Bush administration off the hook if the current talks go nowhere.If Israeli politics are in meltdown, that's certainly not the time to lock in an agreement that breaks new ground, said Jonathan Alterman, Mideast scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.Israeli prosecutors are looking into tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions that Olmert collected from American donors in the years before he became prime minister in 2006.Pressure for Olmert to resign, or at least go on vacation,as Barak put it, grew louder after a key witness, U.S. businessman Morris Talansky, testified this week that he had given $150,000 to Olmert. Talansky said the payments, often cash-stuffed envelopes, helped fund Olmert's expensive lifestyle that included luxury hotels and first-class travel.Olmert has denied any wrongdoing and promised to resign if indicted.
Olmert's government was built on the premise that cutting a deal with the Palestinians is in Israel's best long-term interest. If Barak carries out his threat, new elections could bring a government opposed to those high-level negotiations as well as new, low-level talks with Syria.Even if there were a deep bench of peace-minded politicians behind him, Olmert's personal relationship with his Palestinian counterpart and his direct involvement in talks would be difficult to replicate quickly.Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet regularly, shake hands warmly and act as billboard advertising for closed-door talks that both men say are confronting the toughest issues in the six-decade Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. negotiator and author of a recent history of U.S. peace efforts, The Much Too Promised Land,likens the current talks to a car with three flat tires. The Palestinian Authority is still a mess, Olmert's in trouble and the U.S. doesn't seem reconciled to the kind of arduous diplomacy and hard political choices that a successful U.S.-brokered settlement would require, Miller said.The fourth tire is the only one with any air, and that's Abbas and Olmert. They like each other, and seem to work well together, Miller said. But the car can't really go where it needs to go.Olmert and Abbas inaugurated the negotiations last fall, after seven years of violence, with the goal of sketching a separate Palestinian state before Bush's term ends in January 2009. The talks have produced no clear public accomplishments.
Rice had been pushing both sides to demonstrate some progress, perhaps through the drawing of a new West Bank border, to give Israelis and Palestinians confidence that the talks are getting somewhere.Rice was visibly rattled by questions about Olmert's political future during a visit to Jerusalem this month, and his fortunes were a hot topic during her private meetings with both Israelis and Palestinians. As she often does, Rice also met with Barak on that trip. Olmert, a master political survivor, has weathered repeated scandals throughout his three-decade political career. The new police investigation is the fifth opened into his affairs since he was elected, and he was widely seen to have botched Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon. He could hang on, but would probably be a diminished figure with less political capital to spend selling the unpopular concessions that would be required of Israel under a real land-for-peace settlement. Our goal here is not to achieve an agreement based on the personalities of President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, Casey said. Our goal here is to achieve an agreement that serves the interests of the Palestinian people and of the Israeli people.EDITOR'S NOTE — Anne Gearan covers diplomacy and foreign affairs for The Associated Press.
Previous Israeli political scandals By The Associated Press
Wed May 28, 3:43 PM ET
A corruption investigation against Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is threatening to force his resignation. Some previous scandals and investigations that have rocked Israel's politics:
• Israeli President Moshe Katsav was forced to resign in June 2007 under a cloud of rape, sexual harassment and other charges.
• Omri Sharon, son of ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, started serving a seven-month prison term in February 2008 after being convicted on campaign funding violations. Ariel Sharon was mentioned often in the inquiries but not charged.
• Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson resigned in July 2007 under suspicion of embezzling millions from a union he used to run.
• Olmert ally Haim Ramon was convicted in March 2007 of forcibly kissing a female soldier. After a light sentence, Ramon returned to Olmert's Cabinet as vice premier.
• President Ezer Weizman was forced to resign in 2000 under suspicion of accepting large sums of money from a businessman.
• Prime Minister Ehud Barak and aides were suspected in 2000 of campaign finance irregularities. No charges were filed.
• Decorated Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai resigned from Cabinet in 2000 after being charged with sexually assaulting female workers. He was convicted and given a suspended sentence.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was suspected in 1997 of engineering the appointment of a crony as attorney general in exchange for political support from the Shas party. Netanyahu was not charged.
• Shas leader Arieh Deri was convicted in the case of the attorney general. Also, in 1999, Deri was convicted of accepting bribes and served two years in prison.
• Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin resigned in 1977 shortly before an election when his wife is discovered to have an illegal foreign currency account in the United States.
• Labor Party stalwart Asher Yadlin, picked to be governor of Israel's central bank, was charged in 1977 with taking bribes. Cabinet Minister Avraham Ofer, linked to the Yadlin affair and another corruption case, committed suicide.
