Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Alan Dowty

“Go’al nefesh” (abomination). Thus a headline on the front page of today’s Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest-circulation (and centrist) newspaper, characterizing yesterday’s testimony by U.S. businessman Morris Talansky about his abundant generosity over the years to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Gifts totaled $150,000, much of it cash in envelopes handed over personally, some of it credit card charges for Olmert’s luxurious style of life, over a period of 15 years.

This is the fifth police investigation of Olmert since he became Prime Minister; most are still pending. An indictment on this latest scandal is expected in the months to come. There is no law against Talansky serving as Olmert’s personal Caspomat (as ATMs are known in Israel), but public officials are required to report all income—even if it is for “election campaigns,” and especially if those expenses include $4,000 hotel suites and $60 cigars. But whether there is an indictment or not, Olmert’s public career is finished. He may be left to dangle in public view for a while, but another resurrection is not in the cards. To a public bludgeoned by repeated scandal—the last two Prime Ministers and the last two Presidents all under investigation if not indictment—this was the last straw.

Knives are already being sharpened for the struggle within Kadima to choose a new standard-bearer. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has been waiting for her chance, ever since she prematurely called on Olmert to resign at the time of the interim report of the Winograd Commission on the Second Lebanese War. Shaul Mofaz, former Chief of Staff and current Transport Minister, has for all practical purposes begun his campaign. Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit and others are likely to get in the act.

What impact will all this have on the peace process? A cynic might ask: “What peace process?” Since there is no party willing and able to implement a peace agreement in the Palestinian territories, the Bush administration is now pushing for a “shelf agreement” by the end of the year: a settlement of the conflict in outline that can be implemented when conditions change. But few if any serious observers believe that even this limited objective can be achieved in the months remaining.

Olmert’s successor, whoever it may be, will not be in a significantly stronger position to put something on the shelf. Livni would presumably be slightly more dovish and Mofaz somewhat more hawkish, but no Prime Minister can convince a majority of the public to make far-reaching concessions on basic issues of the conflict to a Palestinian partner who cannot deliver. Unless, that is, there were some stunning new development on the ground.

And that seems as unlikely as Olmert surviving this latest and ugliest go’al nefesh.