Ehud Olmert's announcement Monday that the chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu faction, Avigdor Lieberman, will be a minister in the government is astounding. Moreover, the silence of Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz - who heard about the future appointment while conducting covert negotiations with Olmert - is strange. This silence is akin to consent, and it is outrageous. Before the elections, Peretz explicitly stated that he would not agree to sit in a government with Lieberman. Now a few days after he failed in his confused and misguided attempt to establish a right-wing coalition, with National Union as its spine and the settlement rabbis as its enthusiastic supporters, he appears to be someone whose desire to govern spurs him to turn his back on all his principles.