Word: olmert
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...Minister Ariel Sharon slipped into a coma and in the middle of Israel's own election campaign, the Hamas victory "has people sweating," a senior Israeli security official told TIME. "We had a plan for every eventuality in the Middle East except for this one." Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would not negotiate with a Palestinian government "if even part of it is an armed terrorist organization calling for Israel's destruction." The leader of the right-wing Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, who trails Olmert in the polls before Israel's elections in late March and describes...
...biggest impact of the Palestinian result may be on the Israeli elections scheduled for March. Analysts expect to see the Israeli electorate rally around Ehud Olmert and the Kadima party (of stricken Prime Minister Ariel Sharon), in the way that Israelis do when they sense a possible threat from outside. Voters will want to show support for the acting prime minister and for the security establishment, and that should translate into even bigger gains for Kadima. The most recent polls, before Palestinian result, showed Kadima in the lead, winning around 40 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. But after...
...Olmert doesn't hold all the cards. The Palestinians, as ever, have the ability to influence the Israeli election through the use of violence--and through their own elections, scheduled for Jan. 25, which may increase the power of the radical Islamist group Hamas. Likud, led by the unloved but undeterred Benjamin Netanyahu, 56, has been the beneficiary of Palestinian mayhem in the past. In 1996, for example, Netanyahu overtook Shimon Peres in the race for Prime Minister after a series of terrorist acts by Hamas. "Bibi rises and falls with Hamas," Makovsky said...
...Olmert will have some disadvantages in that discussion. He served in the army, but not prominently. He has never held a major security portfolio. He will be under pressure to reveal Kadima's plans for disengagement on the West Bank. "But he's not going to put out a map during an election campaign," a member of Olmert's Cabinet told me. "That would be crazy, given the uncertainty on the other side." Indeed, Avi Dichter--who will probably be a leading security spokesman for Kadima--sounded very much like a Likudnik when discussing future plans. "Israel is not going...
There is another, more personal challenge facing Olmert. He and Netanyahu, along with Dan Meridor and Benjamin Begin, were once called the four princes of Likud--and of them, Olmert was regarded as the least likely to succeed, a smart inside operator but a politician, not a statesman. He will have to perform in the spotlight now, and inside players tend to wilt when shoved onto center stage. Netanyahu has become Israel's Richard Nixon--his negatives are stratospheric, but he is a tough competitor, a plausible Prime Minister. Olmert will have another opponent as well: the memory of Ariel...