Israel Update For April 2006



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Olmert Forms A Government

Amid April's renewed terrorist violence and threats of more trouble just ahead, Ehud Olmert continued his efforts to patch together a viable coalition government. As I noted was a likely possibility last month, opinion polls in the end proved overly optimistic as to how many seats his new centrist party would capture. Instead of the over one-third of parliament seats he was predicted to secure in most February surveys, Olmert's Kadima party ended up with just under one-forth of the seats-29.

This means he will need to draw several parties into his coalition quilt, the most likely being the Labor party, which captured 20 seats. But Labor new leader, Amir Peretz, confounded Kadima negotiators by demanding to be named Finance Minister, meaning the ruling party would not control overall spending or budget demands in the new government. A counterproposal to name Peretz Foreign Minister was balked at by the ministry professional staff, which noted he has absolutely no foreign policy experience and does not speak English very well.

Olmert was struggling to meet the financial demands of two other parties he hopes to include in his new government, the religious Shas party and the election's surprise victors, the seven-seat Pensioner's party, which is holding out for large spending increases for Israel's growing retired community. Shas leaders in particular seemed eager to join his coalition in order to secure government money for their struggling private school system, but they made clear they will leave if Olmert attempts to carry out his unilateral settlement uprootings pledge in the coming years.

With the drums of conflict and even war being beaten ever more loudly in the troubled Mideast region, it is heartening to recall that Israel's God is planning not the destruction of His special covenant land and people, but their ultimate salvation-when they finally turn to Him: "For thus the Lord God, the holy one of Israel has said, 'In repentance and rest you will be saved. In quietness and trust is your strength.'" (Isaiah 30:15). CR

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