Israeli foreign minister calls on Olmert to resign

Israel’s popular foreign minister today called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign, the highest-ranking official to call for his ousting in the wake of a harsh report about his performance during last year’s war in Lebanon.

“I told him that resignation would be the right thing for him to do,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters, shortly after a meeting with the prime minister.

Livni said she would remain in government “to ensure that improvements are carried out.”

Livni, Olmert’s biggest rival in the ruling Kadima party, said she believed the party could replace Olmert without bringing down the government.

Her comments signalled that Livni would challenge Olmert for party leadership.

“It’s not a personal matter between me and the prime minister – this issue is more important than both of us,” Livni said.

Olmert called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet this morning in a desperate attempt to hold on to power.

The meeting follows a scathing report on his handling of last year’s war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

This week’s report has fuelled a growing chorus of calls for Mr Olmert’s resignation, including from members of his coalition government.

The 34-day war has been widely perceived as a failure. Monday’s report said Mr Olmert bore ultimate responsibility, accusing him of poor judgment, hasty decision making and lack of vision.

Two new polls published in Israeli newspapers said some two-thirds of Israelis wanted Mr Olmert to resign immediately. The surveys indicated that the hawkish former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of the opposition Likud Party, would likely win if new elections were held.

Since the report was issued, Mr Olmert has been scrambling to hold his coalition government together. One minister from the Labour Party, the junior coalition partner, has already quit, and there have been increasing signs of eroding support within Kadima.

In a new blow to Mr Olmert, the chairman of Kadima’s parliamentary faction, Avigdor Yitzhaki, called for the prime minister’s head.

“In order for Kadima to return to being a legitimate ruling party and for the sake of the Prime Minister and for the sake of the entire country, I think the prime minister has to resign,” he told Israel Radio. “He has to take this responsibility and resign.”

Mr Yitzhaki said if Mr Olmert failed to do so immediately he would resign from his post as chairman of his coalition. Yesterday, another Kadima politician, Marina Solodkin, also urged Mr Olmert to step down.

At today’s Cabinet session, Mr Olmert was expected to appoint a committee to look into the findings of the report, which was compiled by a five-member commission headed by a retired judge.

But the appointment of a new committee seemed unlikely to overshadow the rising tide of demands that he quit, which began not long after the costly but inconclusive war, in which almost 4,000 Hezbollah rockets landed in Israel and nearly 160 Israelis were killed.