The blood sport in Israeli politics has turned serious. Knesset Members increasingly cry out for Olmert’s resignation as the gag order is lifted and more revelations come out about the Talansky dealings. NU-NRP M.K. Arieh Eldad and his colleague Uri Ariel had these telling comments in today”s Jerusalem Post article, MK’s Call for Olmert’s Resignation :

“Israel cannot allow bribe-takers to lead it… and it cannot allow these people to lead it into political adventures in order to escape punishment.”

MK Uri Ariel, Eldad’s colleague in NU-NRP, said that “under such grave allegations, the prime minister needs to suspend himself and take a vacation until the end of all legal proceedings.”

Could l’affaire Talansky bring down the Kadima government and give rise to a snap election?

These revelations have come on the eve of a trip by Pres. Bush to Israel for its official 60th Birthday festivities. Shander, for sure. With Olmert potentially sidelined because of the Talansky entanglements, Rice and Bush will be frustrated in perfecting any shelf agreement, a good thing. The Bronner piece in today’s NYT-IHT paints Talansky as a contentious litigant akin to the ‘wasps’ of Ancient Athens captured in the fabled comedy of the same name by by Aristophanes. There is potential ‘blowback’ to Likud as the allegations cover periods when Olmert was a Likud leader. It has echos of the infamous affair that sent Sharon’s son Omri to jail for Likud campaign finance fraud during the same period, 1999. When the remaining gag order restrictions are lifted, more blood will flow, for sure. Meanwhile the international press is having a field day and the daily unravellings are the buzz on the blogosphere. The calls for Olmert’s resignation will be incessant and the government will be in virtual stasis until there is a denouement, and perhaps, even then.

This comes at a time when Hezbollah has fomented a Second Lebanon civil war a major threat on Israel’s northern border and taken over Beirut, isolating the shaky pro-US government and rendering UN Res. 1701 null and void. Iran’s hegemony over the region has grown more ominous, as has that of proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria, too. So much for US naval vessels cruising offshore of the Lebanon coast. The “Hezbollah Beirut blitz” as Walid Phares has called it will also embolden Hamas to act on Israel’s border in the South and Western Negev.

We now have a watching brief for the unraveling of Olmert and the Kadima coalition in the Knesset, all over “mezumeh in der tisch”. I wonder if it isn’t time to bring back Dr. Uzi Landau to Likud from his ‘wilderness years” involvement with the valued “Zionist’ education project to take a leadership role in Likud. He is without taint, something that polls recognize in Israel.