Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert added fuel to rumours he will stand for resuming his former premiership at the polls on January 22, as he told a meeting of the Jewish Federation in San Francisco Thursday, he planned to be “very involved” in the campaign period.
The Israeli election campaign entered into overdrive following US President Barack Obama’s victory at the polls earlier this week, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponent came out in open battle, with Olmert repeating previous allegations Thursday of Netanyahu’s partisan intervention in the US elections, insisting “Israel should not be at the centre of the argument in America”.
Netanyahu was roundly criticised domestically, after appearing to show favouritism for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on an official visit to Israel in July. Placing the blame for Israel’s apparent isolation following Obama’s subsequent comfortable re-election, Olmert asserted “without the prime minister’s action, this would not be the case”.
Netanyahu’s camp retaliated by accusing the former premier of in turn interfering in Israel’s elections, in which he has yet to officially declare his candidacy. He is expected to do so after his return to the Jewish State on November 15.
Elsewhere, on a state visit to Moscow, Israeli President Shimon Peres was forced to deny claims by another former centrist Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni that he was colluding with her to make his own play for the premiership.
The President, whose role in Israeli politics is largely ceremonial, has twice during the course of his Russian trip confirmed to reporters he has no intention of standing in any further elections, emphasising before boarding a plane home Friday that whilst ““I thank those people who support and put their confidence in me, (but) I’m already serving the people and the country, and have been doing so for the past five years,”
“I will continue to fill that role for as long as necessary,” he added, in apparent reference to the forthcoming elections.
On Tuesday, he told reporters accompanying him on the Moscow trip: “I’m the President of the State of Israel. I do not and will not concern myself with other matters.”
Livni has been widely purported to announce her own candidacy for the premiership, either in league with or against former colleague Olmert. Her apparent wooing of Peres reveals her seeming belief that he may be the only candidate with enough sway on both a domestic and international front to appeal to the centrist vote.
In contrast to Netanyahu’s perceived difficult relationship, Peres is a close ally of Obama, for whom he has said he has the “utmost respect”, challenging his critics by insisting “everything he has promised, he ahs delivered”.