Olmert makes a decision, Wednesday, January 11, 2006

It’s still not clear if the Americans will accept the Olmert compromise between what had been Sharon’s adamant refusal to countenance any Palestinian voting in East Jerusalem, and the American insistence that Israel not do anything to give the Palestinians an excuse to cancel or postpone the elections. Two top administration officials, from the State Department and the National Security Council are due here this week to discuss the issue – and other issues – with Olmert. But it is clear that Olmert has decided that quarreling with the Americans is not in his interests right now. Besides, what’s there to argue about – Olmert has been moving Leftward, at least on the diplomatic issues if not the economic issues, since before the disengagement plan was announced.

The Likud ministers, starting with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, are of course opposed to any Palestinian voting inside East Jerusalem, and have made that clear. But they are an opposition party now, still in the government only for their personal convenience as they campaign in the Likud primaries, wanting to remain in government with all its perqs as long as possible.

Binyamin Netanyahu made a lucky choice when he postponed their departure from government from the Tuesday last week before Sharon was hospitalized to the following Friday. In between came the stroke and the ‘responsible thing to do,’ which was to declare fealty to Olmert’s temporary premiership and keep the Likud ministers in the government. Perhaps the Olmert decision will finally drive the Likud out, especially after tomorrow’s vote in the notorious Likud central committee on the party’s list of nominees for Knesset.

Netanyahu, who was given dozens of inches yesterday in a fawning New York Times interview to try to claim the mantle as Sharon’s successor – resulting in vituperative responses from Kadima politicians – has reportedly recommended that several of the ‘rebels’ who literally drove Sharon out of the Likud, get the central committee’s vote. In essence, Netanyahu seems to be claiming the Centrist-pragmatic position, while lining up a radical Rightist Knesset faction behind him.

Just how large that and other factions will be on March 29th, the day after the election, remains a mystery. So far, Kadima, as Sharon’s party, is more than twice as large in the polls as Labor and Likud, which are both beneath the 20 Knesset seat mark. But 75 days until the election is a very long time in Israeli politics, and history shows that the vote in Israel is often decided in the last two to three weeks of the campaign, sometimes even in the last two or three days, if Palestinian violence captures the headlines.

Labor’s Amir Peretz, whose surprise victory over Shimon Peres prompted the changes in the political map and seemed to promise a new wind of change toward a social-democratic economics and dovish diplomacy, meanwhile remains confident he will surprise again. He said yesterday that he always beats the polls, and he’ll do so again – and insisted that the socioeconomic agenda remains the core of his campaign.

‘Sharon may be in hospital,’ he told Channels Ten and Two, ‘but the middle class is dwindling, the poor are poorer than ever, and Olmert is no different from Netanyahu, when it comes to economics. In fact,’ Peretz pointed out, ‘Olmert is presenting Netanyahu’s budget for 2006 as his own.’ Indeed, so he is. Peretz points out that the huge polling results for Kadima are sympathy votes for Sharon, and that the real campaign will only begin later this month when the Labor Party elections produce its list of candidates for Knesset. Netanyahu is saying the same thing, only about his party’s list. And Shimon Peres, after negotiating with Olmert, has won the number 2 slot in the Kadima party, but won’t be foreign minister. Tzipi Livni will get that position. But Peres supposedly will be part of Olmert’s inner circle, involved, in among other things, in choosing the order of candidates on the Kadima list. Promises, promises.

Sharon, by the way, is supposedly being gradually taken off the anaesthesia that has kept him in coma for the last week. He hasn't opened his eyes, and the doctors admit that they have no idea what will happen if and when he does so. There are signs of him wakening -- more arm and leg movements and according to at least one report, his EKG showed a fluctuation at the sound of one of his son's voices. We'll see.

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