The defense minister, Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, was the first senior member of Israel’s coalition government to insist Mr. Olmert relinquish his office over the corruption case.

“The prime minister must disconnect himself from the daily running of the government,” Mr. Barak, said at a lunchtime news conference broadcast live from the Parliament building.

Mr. Barak convened the news conference to explain his party’s position a day after a Long Island businessman at the center of the corruption investigation testified in court here that he gave about $150,000, mostly in cash stuffed into envelopes, to Mr. Olmert over the course of 13 years. He said the money was for campaign financing and personal expenses.

It was unclear what effect the declaration by Mr. Barak, who leads the Labor Party, an essential junior partner in the governing coalition, would have. It was a further blow to the embattled prime minister, but many here are wary of writing Mr. Olmert off, and in the past he has proven to be a savvy survivor.

Mr. Barak said Mr. Olmert could choose to suspend himself, take a leave of absence or resign, and he advised Mr. Olmert’s Kadima Party to act quickly to bring in a new head for the course of the corruption investigation.

If it did not, Mr. Barak said, he would work within Parliament to reach an agreed date for early elections.

But he did not set a date for Mr. Olmert to stand aside and did not take the further step of removing his party from the coalition. Mr. Olmert has denied any wrongdoing in the corruption investigation but has pledged to step down if charged.

Mr. Barak made a similar demand of Mr. Olmert a year ago after an official commission published a scathing interim report on the failings of Mr. Olmert’s government and the military in conducting the 2006 Lebanon war.

At the time, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Mr. Olmert’s own deputy in Kadima, also called on the prime minister to resign. Mr. Olmert, however, survived.

Senior members of Kadima remained silent early Wednesday, though a few party backbenchers joined the growing chorus of critics calling on Mr. Olmert to step down.

In an unusual move, the Israeli courts ruled last week that the Long Island businessman, Morris Talansky, 75, should give an early deposition even though Mr. Olmert has not been charged. Mr. Talansky, who lives in Woodsburgh in Nassau County, has been eager to return to the United States, and the Israeli authorities feared that he might not return to Israel if Mr. Olmert were put on trial.

Coming across during his testimony as an avuncular, unassuming man, Mr. Talansky told the court he was no millionaire or billionaire and portrayed the prime minister as a man with expensive tastes who failed to repay personal loans.

The allegations further sullied the already tarnished public image of Mr. Olmert, who is generally unpopular and under investigation in several other affairs.

Commentators in the news media were generally critical of Mr. Olmert on Wednesday. Critics and former allies questioned whether the prime minister has enough focus or moral authority to continue running the affairs of state, which include delicate negotiations with the Palestinians over statehood and indirect peace talks with Syria over the Golan Heights.

Ami Ayalon, a Labor Party minister who lost a party leadership race to Mr. Barak, told Israel Radio on Wednesday, “The State of Israel needs a prime minister and needs the ability to make decisions no less than the prime minister or a citizen has the right to defend himself.”

The Labor Party holds 19 seats in the 120-seat Parliament and Kadima has 29. The coalition’s majority of 78 slimmed down to 67 when the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu Party quit the coalition in January over the talks with the Palestinians.

Another coalition partner, the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, with 12 seats, has long been threatening to leave the coalition while the Pensioners Party, which has seven seats, is in the throes of an internal rebellion that has split it in two.

There is some question about how eager the Labor Party really is for early elections since Mr. Barak himself has been fairing poorly in the polls. (NYTIMES)

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