Who Put “Deep Throat” up as Olmert’s Nemesis?

What brought the unnamed accuser from America to the door of the Israeli police at this time? According to an Israeli paper, he laid before police investigators strong evidence of a new and grave corruption charge against prime minister Ehud Olmert, the fifth case opened against him thus far – all predating his two-year term as prime minister.
The attorney general Menahem Mazuz found the material substantial enough to order the police to question the prime minister under caution within 48 hours, raising one of the many questions on which a court gag order has condemned the public to ignorance.
Israeli politicians are in a dither but treading on eggs until they too find out what it is all about, why now and whether Olmert can weather the new scandal.
Until Saturday, May 3, the government rested on a slender majority of 67 out of 120 Knesset members, of which Olmert’s Kadima holds 27. Some members of his senior coalition partner, Labor, began demanding his suspension. But Labor’s leader, defense minister Ehud Barak, sent his wishes to the prime minister to come clean out of the probe and denied holding consultations with his advisers about the party’s next step. Olmert cannot afford to let Labor’s 19 members quit.
A junior coalition partner, the Pensioners party, responded to the looming scandal by three of its seven lawmakers splitting off and crossing the floor to the opposition. They have thrown in their lot with the ex-Russian Arkady Gaydamak, giving him a foothold in the Knesset and a boost to his political ambitions without having to fight an election.
The Olmert government was stripped down to a fragile majority of 64.
In the view of debkafile‘s political sources, Olmert’s anonymous accuser was put up to opening his can of worms by a party seeking to cloud Israel’s forthcoming 60th anniversary celebrations to which a glittering gallery of invited foreign guests, led by US president George W. Bush, is invited.
That party, whether domestic or foreign, wants to get rid of Ehud Olmert.
The step may connect with the battle Israel has fought to debunk the National Intelligence Estimate in which 16 US agencies concluded that Iran gave up nuclear weapons development in 2003.
The NIE’s purpose was to hold President Bush back from exercising America’s military option against Iran before he leaves the White House. Israel’s strenuous battle to devalue the estimate put that option back on the table in March. Olmert may have trodden on the toes of powerful American interests.
The anonymous informer against the prime minister turned up a few days after disclosures about Syria’s shattered North Korean reactor, which were clearly coordinated by the White House and the Israeli government.
Add to this the impatience in parts of the US administration with Olmert’s foot-dragging on his promised breakthrough in peace talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas by the end of 2008. Saturday night, May 3, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice started her 15th visit in two years to Jerusalem and Ramallah with little hope of progress.
Impatience on another score was demonstrated by transport minister Shaul Mofaz, former chief of staff and defense minister. After leading Israel’s strategic talks with US officials in Washington, he issued two dire warnings.
One was that Iran may attain command of uranium technology before the end of the year – which means the ability to produce nuclear bombs by next March or April.
This warning carries a critical time frame for an American or Israel military attack: June, July or August, 2008. The window of action is then narrowed by the fall and approaching winter. After that it will be too late
In another speech, Mofaz warned that the Olmert-Livni talks with Palestinian leaders will inevitably force Israel to strip itself of its most vital strategic national assets.
The connection between the two warnings is obvious. Iranian leaders make no secret of their plans to eradicate the Jewish state or their sponsorship of Hamas and Hizballah, which openly acclaim their dedication to the same goal.
Mofaz’s warnings recalled the almost forgotten rhetoric of past Israeli prime ministers.
Israeli history has ruled that none lasted long when they came close to giving up vital security assets. Shimon Peres survived for a year in 1996 after his move to continue the concessions made under the Oslo Framework Accords; Ehud Barak was toppled in 2000 as head of government and defense minister when he shrank from fighting the Palestinian uprising and sought an accommodation with Yasser Arafat instead.
Olmert is said to be on the point of giving up parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and, according to a message carried by Turkish go-betweens to the Syrian ruler, offering to hand over the Golan as well.
The American whistleblower may have been sent – not just as Olmert’s private nemesis but to cut short his “peace talks” before he and foreign minister Tzipi Livni give too much away, and also as a wake-up call for action against Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hizballah.