Olmert Resignation May Doom Hopes for Peace Deal Before Bush Leaves Office

JERUSALEM — American diplomat Luis Moreno used a football analogy to describe the Middle East peace process. "We may be in the 4th quarter, down two touchdowns with the two-minute warning approaching, but we're still alive and kicking," said Moreno, then-deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

That was two months ago.

Now, a Hail Mary pass may be all that's left to salvage President Bush's goal of reaching an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians before the end of his presidency.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's announcement Wednesday that he will resign his post all but freezes the U.S.-sponsored peace talks until a new prime minister takes over, which may not be until after Bush leaves office.

"I don't think that we're heading anywhere," said Ali Jerbawi, Palestinian political science professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Bush administration officials said on Wednesday that they still hope to reach an agreement by the end of the year that will lead to a two-state solution.

Olmert said Israel was "closer than ever" to forging an understanding that could lead to a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians, as well as Syria, although Israeli pundits doubted that assessment in Thursday's newspapers.

"As long as I serve as prime minister, I will not relinquish my efforts to continue to bring the negotiations between us and our neighbors towards a successful and optimistic conclusion," Olmert said Wednesday in a televised address to his people.

He said he would submit his resignation after his party chooses a new leader in September. But if his replacement fails in forming a government, he will stay as prime minister until after new elections early next year.

This week, Israeli negotiating teams met with their Palestinian counterparts in Washington, and indirectly with Syrian envoys in Istanbul. The talks are expected to continue.

But, Olmert, deeply unpopular and embroiled in a widening corruption investigation, may not have the political standing to sign an agreement.

"Olmert faces a difficult problem should he actually try to implement far-reaching diplomatic moves: Chances are that he will be accorded neither public nor political legitimacy to do so," wrote political columnist Maya Bengal on Thursday in the mass-circulation daily Ma'ariv.

In the Mideast peace deals and territorial withdrawals of the past, leaders have come from a position of strength to win over skeptical politicians and members of the public.

"In the Israeli parliament of today, there is no support for any concessions on the Golan (Heights). There is no support for the partition of Jerusalem," said Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. He was speaking of two central territorial compromises Israel faces in reaching an agreement with Syria and the Palestinians.

Further diminishing the chances for a breakthrough is the unpopularity of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority.

"The Palestinians understand if they're going to sit back and wait it could be a year of paralysis. They would like to move (forward). The question is can they move? Can Abu Mazen deliver?" said Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at Hebrew University, referring to Abbas by his nickname.

The leading candidates to succeed Olmert as head of the governing Kadima Party are right-leaning Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is leading the Israeli negotiating team with the Palestinians.

Senior party leaders doubted whether either would succeed in forming a governing coalition, according to Israeli media reports. In that case, Israel would hold a general election in February or March and Olmert would serve as prime minister until then.

"I think that the whole thing is going to be on hold for quite a while, actually," Jerbawi, the Palestinian political scientist, said of the peace talks.

He said without at least a framework agreement, however, Abbas would "be in trouble by the end of the year."

As Israel continues to construct new homes in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, over the objection of Bush administration officials and European leaders, ordinary Palestinians are losing faith in negotiations.

"I think by the end of the year you will see an escalation in violence," Jerbawi said.

Israel, for its part, continues to raid West Bank cities and arrest suspected militants it says are plotting to attack Israel.

"This is the crisis management approach of so many years," Jerbawi said, "and it will continue."