By Shira Efron, Middle East editor, the Middle East Bulletin, 18.09.08

Kadima now has a new chair—Tzipi Livni. After less than three years in office, Ehud Olmert soon is expected to join a long list of Israeli prime ministers who did not complete a full term. Livni will now have an opportunity to put together a coalition, and if she is unable to do so, the Knesset will dissolve and general elections will take place within 90 days. Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud party chief, currently leads in polls focused on the general election. Olmert will remain as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed.
Olmert is infamous for mismanagement of the Israel-Hezbollah War in the summer 2006 and a string of police inquiries and corruption allegations. Yet, he also embarked on two diplomatic initiatives as prime minister, with the Palestinians and Syrians, for which he deserves credit and which his successor, either Livni, or a general election victor, must see as an important legacy upon which to build.
In November 2007, Olmert helped launch the first serious negotiations with the Palestinian leadership after seven years of stalemate. The process, initiated by the United States in Annapolis, Maryland, was aimed at concluding a peace treaty by the end of 2008. Though many doubted this timeframe could be realized, the process did set up a framework for regular high-level talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Negotiators have reportedly even come close to agreement on some key issues, such as borders. Annapolis also set up a framework in which the United States would monitor implementation of both sides’ Road Map obligations, an important step in moving toward a solution.
Olmert, a long-time Likud member until former prime minister Ariel Sharon formed Kadima, realized toward the end of his political career that time was running out for the two-state solution. His statement that “if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses … the State of Israel is finished,” is even more relevant today than it was at the close of the Annapolis conference in November 2007.
Olmert can push forward the diplomatic offensive during the transition period. Indeed, immediately after announcing he would step down following the Kadima primaries, Olmert said that as long as he was prime minister he would continue the talks to try to reach agreements with both the Palestinians and the Syrians. At the risk of restating the obvious: this will not be easy. Politicians, mostly from the right, will argue that as “caretaker” prime minister, Olmert has no authority to make meaningful decisions that would bind future governments. While there is some arguable legal precedent with respect to taking binding decisions, there is no legal basis to prevent Olmert from continuing the negotiations with both the PA and Syria. He should make every effort to keep both tracks alive as long as he is in charge. Growing extremist voices, Israeli and Palestinian alike, that thrive on conflict reinforce the need for the new prime minister to finish the job the late Yitzhak Rabin started and Olmert has worked to continue by leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of peace.
Livni, Olmert’s successor at the head of Kadima and possibly as Israeli prime minister, was raised to believe that all of British Mandate Palestine should be the Jewish homeland by parents who were Irgun activists [pre-state right-wing Jewish militants who violently tried to force the British out] but she now favors a two-state solution. She has been the lead negotiator with the Palestinians and in recent interviews has reiterated her plan to continue negotiations with the hope of reaching a comprehensive agreement that would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On August 3 she told Wolf Blitzer of CNN “I supported and still deeply support the Annapolis process. We decided and promised to make all efforts to reach a peace treaty by the end of the year. We are making all efforts to do so. But, what is more important now is the understanding between Israelis and the Palestinians that we are on the right track… We need to continue negotiating … in order to reach a peace treaty.”
Peace negotiations, particularly with the Palestinians, must be part of the baton passed on from Olmert to his successor as prime minister, be it Livni, or Netanyahu or Labor leader Ehud Barak. It cannot be dropped, even temporarily. Having two Arab partners ready to sit down at the negotiating table presents Israel with a window of opportunity that should be seized lest it close by the time the new prime minister comes to fully realize what past Israeli leaders, such as Rabin, understood: the best way to guarantee Israel’s security is through effective peace agreements with its neighbors.