It’s as if the scene of betrayal were taken from Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” In this final act, the woman closest to the king stands up and cooperates with the enemies of the king to hasten his demise. Shula Zaken, the woman closest to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, might, in the next few days, deliver the incriminating testimony against him that could send him to prison.
For many years, Olmert’s trials have proceeded without a conviction. Now, in the final stretch of his last trial — the Holyland Park case — Olmert is in real danger from the person closest to him. Just when he started to feel that he was about to escape the wrath of the law unscathed, Zaken dropped a bomb that shook the Israeli legal system and the Israeli public. She put a tempting deal for an exchange on the table: Lighten my punishment, and in exchange I’ll give you Olmert’s head.
