Olmert's government in jeopardy

Ruling coalition members back legislation to dissolve Knesset

By Joshua Mitnick | Tuesday, June 24, 2008

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TEL AVIV | On the eve of a summit in Egypt with President Hosni Mubarak on strengthening the cease-fire with Hamas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be hours from losing his job.

A caucus of lawmakers from the Labor Party voted 14-1 to back legislation coming up for approval on Wednesday to dissolve parliament, following suit with Labor leader Ehud Barak's vow to bring down the government unless Mr. Olmert steps down or is replaced by his Kadima party.

Kadima and Labor are the dominant parties in Mr. Olmert's coalition government.

Mr. Barak, the current defense minister and a former prime minister, said he was satisfied with the decision by his faction in the Labor Party.

If the entire Labor Party bloc votes to dissolve parliament, the Knesset, the rest of the coalition is unlikely to have the votes to defeat the legislation. However, some smaller factions have yet to announce whether they will support the motion.

If the legislation passes, it would all but shut down Israel's multi-front peace process, which includes separate talks with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and Syria.

Mr. Olmert will fly to Egypt Tuesday for a half-day summit with Mr. Mubarak, whose government brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza Strip.

Israel is keen on accelerating talks mediated by Egypt to free Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped in a cross-border raid two years ago and held by Hamas.

On Monday, Cpl. Shalit's family lost a petition to Israel's Supreme Court to block the cease-fire deal on the grounds that opening up Gaza's borders would risk allowing militants to smuggle Cpl. Shalit out.

While Israeli public opinion polls show widespread backing for the indirect agreement with Hamas, there is also criticism that Mr. Olmert failed to include Cpl. Shalit in the original deal.

Separately, Israel's government appeared to stop short of a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, and instead announced it was mulling the possibility of declaring two soldiers kidnapped on the Lebanese border in 2006 as deceased.

Labor Party lawmakers face a dilemma: bringing down Mr. Olmert's unpopular government would risk their own seats in parliament.

After being the target of several police investigations on corruption, a new case involving cash donations to Mr. Olmert from U.S. Jewish businessman, Morris Talansky, stirred an uproar among Israelis and pressure on Mr. Olmert to step down.

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