OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies)
Facing mounting calls for his resignation on Friday over a criminal probe into allegations he took bribes from a millionaire U.S. financier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vehemently denied any wrongdoing but said he would quit if he is charged.
"I was elected by you, the citizens of Israel, to be prime minister. I do not intend to shrug off this responsibility," Olmert said. "However, although not required by law, if the attorney general decides to file an indictment against me I will resign."
Ehud Olmert's opponents and much of Israel's press called on him to resign on Friday after he admitted taking cash from the American businessman for close to a decade.
Legal sources say Olmert took hundreds of thousands of dollars from a New York financier referred to as "The Laundry Man" in coded records that investigators say were kept by Olmert's secretary.
Newspapers freed from a gag order on the investigation splashed coverage of the scandal that broke as Israel celebrated the 60th anniversary of the state's founding.
"Millions of shekels -- cash in hand," the top-selling tabloid Maariv said on its front page.
"It is doubtful Olmert can survive the current investigation," wrote Nahum Barnea, a senior columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth daily. "If not because of the Talansky affair, ...then because of the cumulative effect of all the ongoing investigations against him."
Commentator Shalom Yerushalmi, noted in Maariv, how Olmert, in a late-night televised statement had told Israelis he never took bribes and described the money from Morris Talansky as campaign donations managed by Olmert's former law partner.
"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert looked yesterday into the eyes of each and every one of us and asked us to believe him," Yerushalmi wrote. "If the public could respond collectively it would, of course, ask: Why? For how many years can we hear about your escapades with the police and go on believing you?"
Details of the allegations were unveiled on Thursday after the justice ministry lifted a gag-order in the case, which has been the subject of a swirl of speculation for days.
The timing of the revelations was particularly embarrassing for the premier, coming as Israel celebrated its 60th anniversary and one week before a scheduled visit by U.S. President George W. Bush.
The probe is the fifth into the dealings of Olmert before he became prime minister in 2006.
Opposition calls for Olmert's resignation have been mounting and even his coalition partners are getting edgy.
"It's the straw that broke the camel's back, considering all the previous investigations," said Eytan Cabel, secretary general of the Labor party. |
