Olmert showing strain in aftermath of censure

A day after an official investigative committee censured his conduct of last summer’s war in Lebanon, the strain was evident on Ehud Olmert’s face.

Pale and haggard, the Israeli prime minister appeared to nod off several times during Tuesday’s swearing-in of a new police chief. His speech did not mention the war inquiry, but aides said he had been up all night studying its 171 pages of conclusions, which declared him responsible for a “serious failure” in rushing the military into battle unprepared.

The harsh reprimand has thrown Israel into a leadership crisis. Fighting for his political survival, Olmert suffered the first cracks in his 13-month-old governing coalition Tuesday as one Cabinet minister resigned and a member of parliament from his centrist Kadima party joined Israelis across the political spectrum in demanding his resignation.

Other Kadima members were reported to be maneuvering behind the scenes in search of a replacement for the 61-year-old leader, in the hope of clinging to power without the need for an election.

It is uncertain whether the rising pressure will force him to step down, but political analysts say the already unpopular prime minister has been so discredited that his ability to govern effectively, negotiate peace or lead Israel in another war may have been damaged beyond repair.

“He has been doomed to continue to serve in a hostile public atmosphere, on borrowed time,” Nahum Barnea, one of Israel’s leading commentators, wrote in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

Olmert’s broad-based coalition has been troubled from the start by splits over personalities and policies. Last summer’s 34-day war broke out during his third month in office, and the army’s failure to defeat Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon cost him the confidence of most Israelis, who say they feel more vulnerable to regional threats today than they did before.

Israeli officials say Hezbollah is replenishing its arsenal with the kind of rockets fired into northern Israel last summer. They also worry openly about a resumption of intense fighting with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is amassing weapons in the Gaza Strip. And Syrian officials, whose government supports Hezbollah and Hamas, have suggested recently that Israel’s refusal to enter peace talks could lead to war.

Israelis and Palestinians can’t expect progress in Olmert’s periodic talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. U.S. officials are pushing them to revive the peace talks that collapsed in 2007, but acknowledge that prospects are limited by the weaknesses of both leaders.

Olmert has insisted on staying in office, if only to correct the flaws that led to last summer’s rush to war. He has called a Cabinet meeting today to discuss the commission’s recommendations for overhauling Israel’s defense structure.

“He has complete awareness of the lack of public confidence, but he feels that rather than go into a period of turmoil, he must be the one to fix the problems,” said Miri Eisin, the prime minister’s spokeswoman.

Until this week, aides had said that Olmert expected to shore up his government by replacing Defense Minister Amir Peretz with former Prime Minister Ehud Barak or Ami Ayalon, a retired admiral who once led Israel’s domestic security agency.

Both men are challenging Peretz for the leadership of the left-leaning Labor Party in a primary this month. Peretz was lambasted in the war inquiry report.

Ayalon declared Tuesday that Olmert “does not have the public trust to lead the rehabilitation of a torn, frightened society.”

The retired admiral said that if he was elected to lead Labor, he would pull the party out of the government, depriving it of a legislative majority.

Eitan Cabel, a Labor Party minister without portfolio, quit the Cabinet on Tuesday and called on the party to abandon Olmert. Labor has 19 of the governing coalition’s 78 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Olmert faces a challenge within his party. Israeli media reported that Avigdor Yitzhaki, one of Kadima’s 29 members of parliament, has been trying to line up a majority to confront Olmert this week and ask him to relinquish his job to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Kadima lawmakers have no power to oust Olmert as prime minister or party leader, and just one of them, Marina Solodkin, has called openly for Olmert’s resignation.

Israel’s Channel 10 television reported that Livni, a Kadima member who had been noncommittal when Olmert met with the party late Monday, was telling aides Tuesday that “Olmert must go.”

Meanwhile, demonstrators from across the country began walking toward Tel Aviv to join an antigovernment rally set for Thursday. A key aim is to pressure Olmert’s party to kick him out if he does not resign.

boudreaux@latimes.com