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Investigations Test Olmert ’s Power - New York Times Page 1 of 4 October 21, 2007 Investigations Test Olmert’s Power By STEVEN ERLANGER JERUSALEM, Oct. 20 — Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, has had a busy couple of weeks: settling a pension controversy with Holocaust survivors; cutting a deal with Hezbollah; talking with the American secretary of state about peace with the Palestinians; and visiting Moscow to discuss the prospect of a nuclear Iran with President Vladimir V. Putin. And then there were the meetings with the lawyers. And the police. If Mr. Olmert looks tired and besieged, there is a good reason. While trying to run the government, he is facing police and judicial investigations into four different cases — or seven, depending on how you count. The accumulation of investigations raises questions about Mr. Olmert’s leadership and integrity and about his ability to negotiate the difficult compromises necessary for peace with the Palestinians. But Mr. Olmert’s plight also highlights a change in Israeli society. For years, politics was a back-room affair, but today there is a stricter set of legal regulations and a growing popular disgust with corruption. At the same time, longstanding political grudges find an outlet in legal inquiries. Moreover, the fragmentation of parties and the strictness of party financing regulations regularly lead to long investigations into fund-raising, hiring and manipulation of the system to benefit donors or friends. One result is timid governments. “The ability of governments to govern is being compromised by the overlegalization of Israeli society,” said Gidi Grinstein, who runs an independent research center, the Reut Institute. “It creates an environment in the public sector that suppresses initiative, because to act may be to face the consequences. This is not just a battle about whether Olmert is guilty or not, but about whether government can govern.” Mr. Olmert and his government are being investigated, first of all, by a state-appointed committee, known as the Winograd Commission, about their conduct of the war against Hezbollah in 2006. A first report into the opening days of the war was highly critical, but he has weathered that storm, which included a call for him to resign by his deputy and foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. The commission says it will produce its last report by year’s end, but it is difficult to imagine it much harsher than the first. The criminal allegations against Mr. Olmert all stem from events before he became acting prime minister in January 2006 and prime minister in May of that year, after elections. He rejects the charges. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/world/middleeast/21olmert.html?_r=2&hp=&pagew ... 21/10/2007 Investigations Test Olmert ’s Power - New York Times Page 2 of 4 Most turn on the relatively gray area of ministerial “breach of trust.” The one closest to a direct benefit is among the simplest but may be hardest to prove: whether Mr. Olmert got a better deal on a house for helping the builder with planning permission. Another investigates whether he altered the sale terms of Bank Leumi specifically to help a friend — who in the end never bid. The others focus on whether Mr. Olmert used his position improperly to change rules, influence decisions or benefit political, business or party loyalists. “All these cases are relatively small,” said Nahum Barnea, a prominent columnist at Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest newspaper. “But the total adds up. Statistically, I think he’ll be indicted, because it’s hard to imagine the attorney general closing all these cases.” Mr. Olmert is not well liked, Mr. Barnea said. “A lot of people want him out,” he added, “because they see the war as not a series of mistakes but somehow proof of the corruption of leaders.” Mr. Barnea compared Mr. Olmert to Wile E. Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons, who often wound up with a large stone attached to his leg. “He stops just at the abyss, but then the weight of the stone drags him over,” Mr. Barnea said. Still, given Mr. Olmert’s skills and Israel’s political situation, “it doesn’t mean he’s done,” he said. Mr. Olmert faces “no immediate threat,” and “he’s showing real character in handling this, despite ups and downs in his mood.” A cosmopolitan lawyer and deal-making politician, Mr. Olmert is said by aides to be compartmentalizing his work and the investigations. But as former President Clinton was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal and an impeachment trial, no one denies that Mr. Olmert, an aggressive debater and an emotional man, gets distracted, too. Miri Eisin, an Olmert spokeswoman, said that he dealt with the investigations in the evening, when his government work was largely done, and that the impact had been minor. “He’s convinced there won’t be a single indictment,” she said. “It’s all old news, and he feels he’s doing important things and we need to go forward.” While a sitting American president can be indicted only by Congress, Israeli leaders have no immunity from investigation or indictment. In fact, the police and the attorney general seem to investigate delicate cases against politicians for years, with little pressure either to bring an indictment or close a case, decisions that obviously have political implications. Mr. Olmert’s justice minister, Daniel Friedmann, favors a bill that would put time limits on investigations of politicians. In an interview, Mr. Friedmann, an academic critical of the Israeli justice system, was careful not to speak about Mr. Olmert, while supporting independent oversight to ensure that prime ministers are investigated only “if the matter is sufficiently grave.” “There is a serious problem about the ability to govern,” he said. “One has to be careful so that criminals don’t go free, but what happened with Lieberman is utterly unacceptable.” Avigdor Lieberman, now a cabinet minister, has been under investigation for money laundering for eight years without an indictment or a conclusion to his case. “A political figure can’t recover — not from the judgment, but from the investigation,” Mr. Friedmann said. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/world/middleeast/21olmert.html?_r=2&hp=&pagew ... 21/10/2007 Investigations Test Olmert ’s Power - New York Times Page 3 of 4 Investigations into the political and business practices of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — comatose since January 2006 — lasted years, but he was never indicted while prime minister, which prompted accusations of favoritism and cowardice against Menachem Mazuz, still attorney general. The effort to indict former President Moshe Katsav on rape and sexual harassment charges dragged on past his term, and even a Mazuz-devised plea bargain on lesser charges has been delayed by the Supreme Court. Asher Cohen, a political scientist at Bar -Ilan University, said that a new public disgust with corruption had prompted an investigative atmosphere. “When more effort is made to uncover corruption, there is a tendency to believe that corruption itself has increased,” he said. “There may well have been ‘Olmerts’ 30 years ago, but no one investigated and the public wasn’t interested.” General mistrust in government has affected the reputation of the police and judiciary, too. In cases like Mr. Lieberman’s, Mr. Cohen said, the public begins to think that the authorities “have it in for the person concerned, and this also erodes public trust.” Other ministers are under investigation or have resigned. Tzachi Hanegbi resigned as Likud’s public security minister when police investigated him; he was indicted over a political appointments case. Ruhama Avraham, a cabinet minister, is being investigated for taking a bribe while a legislator. Haim Ramon resigned as justice minister to face trial on a controversial case of sexual harassment; after his conviction, he was brought back into the cabinet. The finance minister, Avraham Hirschson, resigned before his indictment last week on embezzlement charges from 2000. If indicted, Mr. Olmert is unlikely to resign, which would mean that the whole government would collapse. By law, a prime minister need not leave office even if convicted, without a separate finding of “moral turpitude,” so long as an appeal is outstanding. “I don’t know if they can nail Olmert down,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan. “He’s a smart man, and cautious, and this is not something new.” He suggested that Mr. Sharon escaped prosecution by initiating the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza, which endeared him to the left. “Olmert is trying to do the same thing with his talks with the Palestinians,” he said. Given such suspicions, Mr. Barnea, the columnist, said, “you can’t separate how he handles his job as prime minister and the investigations,” which Israelis assume will affect policy decisions. If Mr. Olmert goes hard into Gaza against Hamas, or makes a deal with the Palestinians, “people will say he’s trying to change the agenda from the investigations,” Mr. Barnea said. Aluf Benn, a journalist with Haaretz, notes the reluctance of the police and the attorney general to conclude investigations into sitting prime ministers. “The probability is that something might lead to an indictment,” which could cause a political crisis, Mr. Benn said. “But it can take a year, and then the electoral timetable is close to new elections anyway. In the end his fate will be decided by politicians, not by the judiciary.” Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/world/middleeast/21olmert.html?_r=2&hp=&pagew ... 21/10/2007 Investigations Test Olmert ’s Power - New York Times Page 4 of 4 Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/world/middleeast/21olmert.html?_r=2&hp=&pagew ..

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