What Ehud Olmert's resignation means for Israel

Can the next government recover from 'the year of scandal'?

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has finally succumbed to pressure over corruption allegations, and announced his resignation, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Now law enforcement authorities must follow up with an indictment or be accused of “hounding” an elected leader out of office. Olmert will keep fighting to clear his name, but he did the right thing by putting “the good of the state” first.

“Now comes the hard work of restoring sanity to Israeli politics,” said Yossi Klein Halevi in The New Republic’s The Plank blog. Olmert—who may have subsidized family trips with a Holocaust museum’s money—was “the embodiment” of a “year of scandal” in Israel. Let’s hope the next government can move on to more serious matters, such as restoring “Israeli deterrence by dealing with the Iranian crisis.”

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