Olmert Attempts to Shrug Off Unpopularity

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has made a fresh attempt to restore his political standing ahead of a crucial report that is expected to criticise his handling of last summer's war in Lebanon.

In an unusually defiant speech to his Kadima party's governing council, Mr Olmert admitted he was "an unpopular prime minister" but showed he intends to ride out the growing calls for his resignation.

"Even though some think this is hunting season, I am sorry to disappoint my detractors, but I am here to work," he said in the speech yesterday. "Let there be no mistake: I intend to be working for you for a long time yet."

Despite his confidence, Mr Olmert is in a deeply uncomfortable position. His popularity ratings have sunk in recent weeks, with an Israeli public disillusioned by what is widely perceived as a failed war against Hizbullah last year. The prime minister has also faced a string of corruption allegations and several other scandals involving members of his government. In his speech, Mr Olmert dismissed the feverish media criticism that has surrounded his year in office as a "cauldron of poison".

Earlier this week an investigative committee studying the conduct of last summer's war said it would produce an interim report in late April in which it would draw "personal conclusions" about the responsibility of Mr Olmert, his defence minister, Amir Peretz, and the then army chief of staff, General Dan Halutz, who has already resigned.

The committee, headed by a retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd, said it would consider "the decisions leading up to the beginning of the campaign and the manner in which they were made". It will focus on the first five days of the war last July.

Although few expect the Winograd committee to call directly for Mr Olmert or Mr Peretz to resign, the pressure of formal criticism of his handling of the war might be enough to unseat him. Opinion polls already give him only single-figure popularity ratings. A survey by the Dahaf Polling Institute earlier this month said only 2% ranked Mr Olmert as the most trustworthy among a list of senior politicians. Mr Peretz was on 7%. Top of the list with 22% was Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, a woman now regarded as a potential replacement as prime minister.

Newspaper commentators noted today that Ms Livni stopped short of publicly backing Mr Olmert at the Kadima meeting. Instead she called for unity within the party. "That part of the public which supported us is sitting on the fence," she said. "We have to win back its trust."

If it does come to early elections, the other leading candidate will be Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and leader of the rightwing Likud party, who has scored well in opinion polls for several months. He is already trying to convince a number of Kadima MPs to defect to his side.

Many analysts say openly they believe there is little Mr Olmert can do to restore his position or last the full four years in office. "It is doubtful whether there is a word today that can be said, a sentence that will penetrate the hearts, a speech that will make an impression, which can help Olmert change his standing or lengthen his term of office," a columnist, Sima Kadmon, wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Some have speculated that a dramatic diplomatic initiative might rescue the prime minister in the way that his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, deflected criticism of his government by deciding to pull all settlers out of Gaza in 2005. But Israeli officials say privately there is unlikely to be a major initiative on the peace process before the Winograd report is due.

"The question that is occupying the political establishment is not whether Olmert will survive, but who will replace him and how," Nahum Barnea, the country's most respected political commentator, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth.