 |
 |
 |
|
|
Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem Sunday. (AP)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff and partners January 9, 2006 |
|
| |
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised Sunday to "carry out the wishes" of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a pledge meant to signal that Sharon's potential heir would carry on his political legacy.
Presiding over the first regularly scheduled Cabinet meeting since Sharon's massive stroke Wednesday, Olmert told ministers that if their ailing leader could speak, he would want everyone to return to work on the country's pressing security, social and economic issues.
"This we will continue to do," he said. "We will continue also to carry out the wishes of Sharon, and administer affairs as they should be."
Sharon's collapse threw Israel's political establishment into turmoil and cast grave doubts over prospects for resuming long-stalled peace talks.
Before the stroke, Sharon appeared headed to win a third term in office at the head of Kadima, the centrist party he formed in November to forge ahead with continued territorial concessions to the Palestinians. Although Sharon's summer withdrawal from the Gaza Strip hasn't provided a springboard to revive peace talks, there had been hope talks negotiations would resume after Israeli elections in March.
But with his neurosurgeon asserting that Sharon would not be able to return to his job, the Mideast political stage has been deprived of a hard-charging leader who was the first Israeli prime minister to evacuate lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.
Israelis and the international community will look to his successor to finish carrying out the historic task he began of drawing Israel's final borders, but it's unclear whether any of his potential successors will have the stature to assume that mantle.
Sharon remained in critical but stable condition on Sunday, and his medical team decided to wait until Monday to bring him out of his induced coma to assess how much brain damage he has sustained. While he is still in a coma, it is impossible to predict the full extent of his impairment, but on Saturday, his surgeon, Dr. Jose Cohen, said the prime minister has definitely suffered some cognitive damage, and that he would not return to his job.
Olmert is the front-runner to succeed Sharon as head of Kadima, a party that had been a one-man show before Sharon collapsed, and was expected to dominate March 28 elections.
Although the party is made up of a diverse mix of politicians linked by little more than their loyalty to Sharon, its members have lined up behind Olmert, and recent polls show an Olmert-led Kadima gaining almost as many seats as it would have under Sharon.
But that could change dramatically before the elections, and Olmert - a shrewd, political operator who is respected for his intellect but controls no grass-roots political base - faces a daunting task in keeping Kadima's momentum going now that the party has lost its fulcrum.
In the meantime, Olmert used his high-profile status Sunday to show both his domestic audience and an international community that barely knows him that the day-to-day affairs of state were continuing as usual - and that politically, he would stake out a middle ground.
Olmert, whose main job was finance minister before Sharon took ill, addressed an annual ministry news conference surveying the fiscal developments of the past year. "I pray with all the people of Israel that my tenure as acting prime minister will be short, so soon enough we will be able to see again the leader of Israel," he said.
In the past four years, Olmert had been Sharon's trusted point man, often floating proposals in public that later became policy. Some say Olmert, who had been a right-wing ideologue for most of his political life, embraced the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from some Palestinian-claimed lands before Sharon did, and that if elected prime minister, he could be more amenable to negotiating a peace deal with the Palestinians than was Sharon, who did not trust them.
"He is a shrewd lawyer, a very practical man," said Olmert's longtime friend, Moshe Amirav. "If they (the Palestinians) can deliver stability, he will be ready to give up land, and surprise the world with his moderation."
The AP contributed to this report.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
