Olmert Did Not Yet Resign: He Holds On to the Reigns of Power

Even as the Israeli Prime Minister announces his intent to resign, he acts as if he will make himself indispensable to the country, while he recruits Diaspora Jews to his cause.

After all, when a lawyer announces his verbal intent to act, such a commitment is worth the paper that it was not written on.

On Wednesday evening, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that he “intends to resign” from his high office immediately after the September primaries scheduled for his Kadima party.

Mr. Olmert’s statement did not contain one word of regret, guilt or accountability for no less than half a dozen criminal cases pending against Olmert.

Mr. Olmert did not utter a word about a war in the north that he so badly mismanaged.

Mr. Olmert did not utter a word about how he mismanaged Israel’s ability to cope with the seething Hamas military might that threatens Israel from the south.

Instead, Mr. Olmert presented himself as the victim of police persecution and stated, quite clearly, that he would use the time left in office to advance international agreements that he has been advancing – those with the PLO and with Syria.

The timing of Olmert’s announcement that he intended to resign occurred only two hours after Israel’s parliament went into a long summer recess.

Mr. Olmert will now administer the country with 108 paid advisors who remain at his beck and call – the highest amount of paid advisors ever retained by an Israeli Prime Minister – while also retaining an expensive public relations firm and a team of lawyers; all at public expense, without any democratically elected body that he will have to report to.

Mr. Olmert now creates facts on the ground that foster a secretive Middle East diplomatic process with the Arab world and with the American government; a process which only Mr. Olmert knows about.

A case in point. Only a few hours before Mr. Olmert’s “intent to resign” speech, two of his advisors returned from secret negotiations with Syria, leaving Israel’s democratically elected legislative body and the entire Israeli security establishment in the dark. Meanwhile, Mr. Olmert has recruited dozens of docile diaspora Jewish organizations who will advance his foreign policy initiatives, because he is the “democratically elected” Prime Minister of Israel. Over the next month, Mr. Olmert has scheduled numerous appearances before Jewish organizations that advocate for his diplomatic initiatives.

The nearly two months’ time that Mr. Olmert has left himself until the Kadima primaries will draw quite close to the American elections. The advantage of an Israeli altercation with Iran while George W. Bush is still President of the United States has not been lost on Mr. Olmert. He could conceivably prevail upon the powers to be in Kadima to “delay” the Kadima primaries in the interests of Israel’s national security, as set forth by Mr. Olmert, the first elected Kadima Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Mr. Olmert’s speech, headlines on all news Internet sites in Israel prematurely reported the story that Mr. Olmert has resigned. Israel’s citizens prepare for their second half of their summer vacation, thinking that the nightmare of this Prime Minister is behind them.

Little do they know. Their nightmare has just begun,