Here is the news: Aliza and Ehud Olmert will be summoned to an investigation
in the State Comptroller's office within a few days.
The prime minister and his wife will be presented with these findings:
The price they paid for their new house on 8 Cremieux Street in Jerusalem
is lower than its market price by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The difference between the sum they paid - some $1.2 million - and the
house's value - $1.6-1.8 million - is hard to explain. It raises suspicion
that the prime minister and his wife illicitly received about half a million
dollars.
There is another suspicion: The house the Olmerts bought had been earmarked
for preservation. Converting a house marked for preservation into a house
that can be torn down, rebuilt or expanded requires special and irregular
permits from the Jerusalem municipality. There is evidence to support the
suspicion that Olmert's confidants helped the contractor who sold Olmert
the house obtain those irregular permits. If this is the case, the real
estate deal was probably a bribery deal. The prime minister and his wife
will be questioned about that.
Presumably, the questioning of the Olmerts by State Comptroller Micha
Lindenstrauss' investigators and his adviser on corruption, retired detective
Yaakov Borovsky, will wrap up the comptroller's investigation.
The comptroller will present the attorney general with a slim but weighty
document. It is very likely that the document will leave Attorney General
Menachem Mazuz with no choice but to open a criminal inquiry against the
prime minister and his wife.
It is highly doubtful that Olmert could even temporarily survive such
a police probe considering the present public mood. Chances are that within
about two months he will no longer be Israel's prime minister.
When reporter Yoav Yitzhak exposed the affair of Olmert's house sale
before the last elections, other journalists defended Olmert. They portrayed
the experienced investigator as eccentric, helping to smooth Olmert's way
to the prime minister's office. But as soon as honest professional officials
became involved, the path led instead to investigating Olmert.
The significance is clear: politically, Olmert is a dead man walking.
Whatever Yoav Yitzhak did not do, the State Comptroller's men will do.
Whatever they don't do, the police will probably do. Whatever the police
don't do, the public, hopefully, will do. This time the public will not
be deceived or keep quiet. Its cry of outrage will rock the foundations.
One may hazard a guess that by the Knesset's winter session, Olmert
will no longer be prime minister. But leaving him in power until then could
cause incalculable damage. How could the vital task of shaking up the national
institutions be undertaken when a man suspected of criminal behavior stands
at their head? It will not be possible to prepare for the danger of an
approaching war when the head of the state is a man whose honesty, integrity
and personality are cast in doubt.
Therefore the good of the state requires accelerating the inquiry process,
not suspending it. The Olmert issue must be sorted out swiftly and thoroughly.
It cannot continue to hover like a shadow over a country in an emergency.
A country committed to embark on a new era without delay cannot accept
at its helm a man embodying the affliction of the old era.
17.08. 2006
http://www.haaretz.com
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