ISRAEL’S Prime Minister Olmert said on Wednesday he would step down after a September party leadership vote and tried to insist that he was innocent of graft allegations that have dogged his premiership.
‘After the election of my successor I will step down to allow a government to be formed rapidly,’ Olmert said.
His announcement is the outcome of the political storm unleashed when police launched a probe in May over suspicions he had accepted vast sums of money from a US financier to fund elections campaigns and a lavish lifestyle in the 13 years before he became premier in 2006.
‘I have made mistakes and I regret it,’ said the 62-year-old Olmert.
‘I will quit my duties in an honourable, just and responsible manner, as I have acted throughout my mandate,’ he said unconvincingly, in a televised announcement from his official residence in Jerusalem.
He added: ‘I will then prove my innocence.’
A senior Israeli official said Olmert spoke to his friend and key ally US President George W Bush, before making his decision public.
‘We are going to look forward to working with all responsible Israeli leaders in the government, whether it is this government or future governments,’ US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said after Olmert’s announcement.
Israel’s current President, Shimon Peres, has the job of designating the MP best placed to form a parliamentary majority.
Under Israeli law, the designated MP would have up to 42 days to form a government, during which time Olmert would head a transitional administration.
Olmert, who took over Israel’s most powerful political post from his mentor Ariel Sharon in January 2006, has admitted he had accepted money from Morris Talansky in the latest corruption probe, but has denied any wrongdoing.
State Prosecutor Moshe Lador said last week he would decide whether to indict Olmert over the Talansky affair ‘very soon.’
Talansky said in his May testimony he had given Olmert cash-stuffed envelopes on multiple occasions to cover expenses for his stays in the United States and pay for his election campaigns as Jerusalem mayor and Likud MP.
In a fierce cross-examination this month Olmert’s lawyers called Talansky a liar and uncovered several contradictions in his testimony but the 75-year-old Jewish-American financier insisted his overall story was accurate.
The latest investigation led local media, opposition parties, coalition allies and Kadima party members to renew their calls for the resignation of Olmert, who is currently facing a total of six corruption probes.
Last month Labour party chief Ehud Barak, a key coalition partner, pushed Olmert to schedule an unprecedented party primary by threatening to support a bill to dissolve parliament.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is the front-runner for the job of Prime Minister, but Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter are also expected to compete.
Olmert took over as prime minister from Sharon in January 2006 after his mentor fell into a deep coma. He then led Kadima to victory in parliamentary elections in March that year.
Sharon is still being kept alive but shows no signs of coming out of the coma.
Olmert’s government was plunged into turmoil that summer however when Israel fought Lebanon’s Hezbollah in a bloody 34-day campaign widely viewed as Israel’s biggest military failure, thus far.
The war led to the resignation of then defence minister Amir Peretz and army chief Dan Halutz and saw mounting calls for Olmert to follow suit, but the premier endured even when his approval ratings hit single-digit record lows.
l Only 6% of probes into offences allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yield indictments, an Israeli rights group said on Wednesday.
Of a total of 1,246 investigations by the military police into suspected offences against Palestinians or Palestinian property between 2000 and 2007, only 76 ended in indictments, the Yesh Din human rights group said.
A total of 132 people were charged, of whom 110 were found guilty of various offences, four were acquitted, eight indictments were annulled and the trials of 10 others are still under way, the report said.
‘The figures on the low number of investigations and the minute number of indictments filed reveal that the army is shirking its duty to protect the civilian Palestinian population from offences committed by its soldiers,’ Yesh Din legal advisor Michael Sfadi said in a statement.
According to figures provided to Yesh Din by the army, only a few of the investigations followed complaints from within army ranks.
Out of 152 probes launched in 2006, only 14, or 9%, were based on complaints filed within the military, the report said. In 2007, 7% of the investigations emanated from the army.
‘The minute number of indictments launched following reports by commanders to military police, brings to light the army’s conspiracy of silence over offences against Palestinians,’ Sfadi said.
In response, an army spokesman said it deploys ‘several methods to examine in a professional manner complaints over offences against Palestinians.’
He said that 39 soldiers have been charged since a special military justice section was formed to deal with this kind of investigations.
In a separate incident, the army on Tuesday suspended a commander for 10 days after he failed a lie-detection test over the shooting of a blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian with a rubber-coated bullet.
l US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has agreed to explore deploying a powerful missile defense targeting radar in Israel, a senior US defence official said on Tuesday.
‘The idea here is to help Israel create a layered missile defence capability to protect it from all sorts of threats in the region, near and far,’ said the official.
Gates discussed the Israeli request on Monday in a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the official said.
Besides the radar, Gates also agreed to explore sharing of missile early warning launch data, as well as US funding for two costly Israeli projects designed to counter short-range rockets and mortars, he said.
The official said deploying the X-band radar was a near-term proposition, adding ‘all this is moving pretty quickly.
‘We are going to station this land-based system there, and the Israelis would plug into it,’ said the official.