RT Monitoring Desk
JERUSALEM: Allies and opponents clamored Tuesday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation after scathing criticism from an official commission of his performance during last year’s Lebanon war. Olmert, visibly drained by the ordeal, insisted he could ride out the storm. Olmert might be able to hang on for now: His coalition partners are wary of any further upheaval that might loosen their grip on power.But the crisis could cripple policymaking, especially on peacemaking, and all of Olmert’s desperate efforts to survive could run aground if the public outcry swells.”It’s a very big drama, and the seismograph is shaking,” said Avraham Diskin, a political science professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “But a real earthquake may not come, or might be delayed.”Olmert took the blow of his long political life Monday when a government war probe tarred him as acting rashly in the initial stage of Israel’s war against Hezbollah guerrillas, who seized two Israeli soldiers and bombarded northern Israeli communities with rockets. Despite the unprecedented criticism, Olmert immediately vowed to stay on.Olmert tried to project a business-as-usual image on Tuesday, attending a swearing-in ceremony for Israel’s new police commissioner and instructing Defense Minister Amir Peretz to draw up a plan for dismantling unauthorized West Bank settlement outposts.But the prime minister — who stayed up all night reading the 263-page report, aides said — looked haggard, and he struggled to stay awake at the police ceremony.