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In an atmosphere of heightened tensions, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday night to affirm the ties between the two countries. Russian President Dmitry... Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is seen during a medal ceremony for Russian troops involved in the Georgia conflict in the city of Vladikavkaz. Photo: AP Slideshow: Pictures of the week According to Olmert's office the two leaders talked about regional and bilateral issues and looked to advance relations between their nations. The conversation came after Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in Russia Wednesday for a two-day visit during which he is...

His claims to have brought unprecedented calm to northern Israel notwithstanding, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday acknowledged in a stern warning to Beirut that renewed conflict with Lebanon’s Hizballah terrorist militia is a real possibility. Israel, said Olmert, practiced tremendous restraint during the 2006 Second Lebanon War as it did its best to differentiate between Hizballah and Lebanon, and only wage war against the former.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday rejected an Israeli peace proposal, which included withdrawal from 93 percent of the West Bank, because it does not provide for a contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas's spokesman, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan showed a "lack of seriousness." Under the proposal, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 percent of the West Bank, plus all of the Gaza Strip, when the Palestinian Authority regains control over the Gaza Strip, which the militant group Hamas seized from forces loyal to...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered the Palestinian Authority a preliminary final status peace agreement that would see Israel surrender 93 percent of Judea and Samaria. Ha’aretz learned that Olmert presented the deal when he met last week with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and is still waiting on a reply from the Palestinian side. The offer also includes surrendering a small area of Israel’s Negev desert to the Palestinians to make up for the 7 percent of the so-called “West Bank” where large Jewish towns today exist that Israel would retain.

Monday will mark the third anniversary of the forcible expulsion of the Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria from their homes. Those expulsion were followed weeks later by the withdrawal of IDF personnel from the Gaza Strip. Unlike the Rabin-Peres government's decision to embark on the Oslo peace process with the PLO in 1993, Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza did not take years to be discredited. It took moments. As the last IDF personnel left Gaza, the Palestinians began torching the synagogues Israel abandoned. Within minutes of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza's border with Egypt, the Palestinians blew up the border...

The announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert that he would not contest the leadership in his Kadima Party’s internal elections next month and would resign as soon as a new Prime Minister is in office was widely expected. But it still set off a political tumult in Israel, partly because the realistic range of options for his successor is so wide. Olmert may indeed step down as soon as mid-October but he could also end up staying in office until spring of 2009. The transition is a gradual process. First come the internal elections within the Kadima Party. The two...

While Olmert did promise to step down following the Kadima primary, that move was conditioned on the winner of the internal election successfully forming a new majority government. It is widely believed that both of the Kadima leadership frontrunners, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, will have great difficulty accomplishing that task. Should the winner of the primary fail to form a new majority government, Olmert will by default remain prime minister of the current government until new national elections can be held, probably in March or April of next year. Olmert made no commitment to refrain...

Olmert announces will step down after Kadima primaries In dramatic public address, Olmert announces Wednesday evening he will not seek reelection in upcoming Kadima primaries. Confirming he will step down once new chairman is elected, Olmert pledges fight to clear his name Attila Somfalvi Published: 07.30.08, 20:13 / Israel News Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Wednesday evening he would not seek reelection in the upcoming Kadima primaries. Olmert said he would step down after a new chairman is elected within his party on September 17th. "I have decided I won't run in the Kadima movement primaries, nor do I...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that he has decided not to contend in the Kadima primary and would resign as soon as the new party leader was chosen, due to the criminal investigation that have embroiled him in recent months. Olmert made the announcement in a statement to the public from his official residence in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has come under renewed intense pressure to step down this week amid allegations that he defrauded a number of national charities during his time as mayor of Jerusalem and minister of industry and trade. According to a police statement released at the weekend, evidence suggests that over the course of many years Olmert asked several different charities to fund each of his trips abroad on state business. The money from only one charity was needed to pay for each trip, while the money from the others was deposited into a special bank account that the...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of fraud on Friday and said a probe into alleged bribe-taking had been widened to look at whether he made duplicate claims for travel expenses. Police and prosecutors said they asked the Israeli leader during questioning on Friday to "give his account about suspicions of serious fraud and other offences", which involved him billing different public bodies for the same trips abroad. Police questioned Olmert for the third time on Friday as part of an investigation into allegations he took bribes from American businessman Morris Talansky.

Israel Police investigators conducted a third interrogation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday in relation to mounting evidence that he accepted bribes during his time as mayor of Jerusalem and later as minister of industry and trade under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The investigation marks the sixth corruption scandal Olmert has been involved in since becoming prime minister. This time round, police officials cited by the Israeli media say the evidence is extremely damning, and that if Olmert were not prime minister he would already have been arrested.

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert probably will not run in the Kadima party leadership primaries in September after realizing that the public has deserted him, according to a wide number of media reports. The internal elections will be held on September 17, with a second round a week later, if necessary, according to the usually reliable Channel 1 television news program. However, Kadima election steering committee head Knesset Member Tzachi HaNegbi denied Thursday morning that the Prime Minister has made a final decision, which he said will not be announced until next month. The Prime Minister agreed to new primaries...

On Thursday, after a Qassam rocket was fired at Israel from Gaza, Israel announced it was closing the crossings into Gaza. The Qassam was the sixth (along with four mortars) fired since the “ceasefire” began on June 19. Israel’s announcement of a closing of the crossings was its seventh since that time. On Friday, Hamas claimed the closing was a breach of the ceasefire agreement by Israel and announced that in reprisal it was suspending the talks on a deal for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas two years ago. On Sunday, Israel announced it was reopening the...

Syria is ready to break off its close links with Iran if America gives it financial and military backing, a former Israeli diplomat involved in unofficial peace talks has revealed to The Sunday Telegraph. According to the offical, who has been engaged in low-key "second track" discussions with Syrian representatives for many months, Syria's President Bashar Assad is increasingly open to a deal which would greatly weaken Iranian influence in the region. Alon Liel, a former director of Israel's foreign ministry, said the prospect of a peace agreement with Syria was growing, though it might require a new American president...

Hours after three people were killed when a terrorist in a bulldozer went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the attacker’s east Jerusalem home must be destroyed. Olmert held consultations in his office following the attack, and Jerusalem officials said that the prime minister was expected to discuss the possibility of destroying the terrorist’s home with Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann. He is also set to discuss taking away National Insurance Institute (NII) rights from the terrorist’s family. Following the attack, U.S. President George W. Bush phoned Olmert and offered his condolences to the Israeli...

On Sunday the Israeli cabinet voted 22-3 in favor of a “prisoner” swap with Hezbollah. Israel, on its side of the bargain, won’t be receiving any prisoners but instead the corpses of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006, along with partial, inadequate information on Ron Arad, the airman shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Hezbollah, for its part, gets five live terrorists including child-killer Samir Kuntar, dozens of corpses of terrorists, information on four Iranian diplomats who were detained by Christian Phalange forces in Lebanon in 1982, and live Palestinian terrorists whose number...

Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two soldiers whose kidnapping on July 12, 2006, triggered the Second Lebanon War, are expected to be returned to Israel within 10 days as a result of Sunday's cabinet approval of a swap with Hizbullah. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a dramatic statement to his ministers at the outset of a six-hour discussion on the deal, said the two men are almost certainly dead. "As far as we know, the two soldiers - Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev - are no longer alive," he said. "As far as we know, they were killed during...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told his cabinet that two soldiers captured by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are dead, officials say. His comments came as ministers debated whether to go ahead with a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. Mr Olmert is reportedly backing the deal.Critics oppose swapping prisoners for the bodies of dead Israeli troops.

Ehud Olmert was flying back from negotiations in Egypt yesterday when news broke that the ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip had been violated after less than five days. The embattled Israeli Prime Minister, who has sought to detract from his problems at home by starting a series of spectacular diplomatic initiatives, could now see his hold on power crumble swiftly. Mr Olmert had hoped that his new opening to Syria, Lebanon and Hamas would stave off domestic threats to his leadership, as opposition parties tried to force him out of office. Yet 24 hours before the Knesset,...

Aides say PM will hand in resignation to president in case Knesset dissolution bill approved in Wednesday's vote. 'If motion passes and ministers are fired, Israel will have a minority government that would not be able to function and would be considered a joke,' associate says Attila Somfalvi YNET Published: 06.24.08, 00:57 / Israel News www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3559473,00.html Prime Minster Ehud Olmert is considering handing in his resignation to President Shimon Peres in the coming days should the motion calling for the Knesset's dissolution pass a preliminary vote on Wednesday, sources in the PM's Office told Ynet Monday night. According to the...

One former general in the Israel Defense Forces made an original proposal this week: If in the swap of the murderer Samir Kuntar for Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser it is possible to learn the abducted soldiers' fate, Kuntar's fate should be decided accordingly. If they are returned alive, he will be returned alive. If they are brought back in coffins, he will also be put to death, on the spot, and his body returned to Lebanon in exchange for their bodies. It was not serious, of course. A state that considers itself enlightened does not behave this way, at...

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh denied on Friday that Hamas had agreed to stop weapons-smuggling efforts on Gaza's border with Egypt as part of the cease-fire deal with Israel, and claimed that it was incapable of such action. According to a Reuters report, Haniyeh - speaking to worshipers ahead of Friday prayers in Gaza City - said: "We cannot talk about stopping smuggling because it is something beyond our ability as a government and we did not give a commitment in this regard." Haniyeh added that Hamas would not force other organizations in Gaza to abide by the truce, but...

The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government's liquidation sale of Israel's strategic assets opened officially this week. Iran's proxies have pounced on the merchandise. The first asset sold was the security of southern Israel. The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government's "cease-fire" with Hamas transferred all power to determine the fate of the residents of southern Israel to Iran's Palestinian proxy. Under the "agreement," Hamas will refrain from attacking Sderot, Ashkelon, Netivot and surrounding kibbutzim for as long as it serves its interests. Since temporarily halting its attacks on southern Israel is the only thing that Hamas has agreed to do, it will use the lull in fighting...

Israeli Opposition leader, Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu sounded spitting mad Thursday at the Olmert government’s agreeing to a ceasefire with the Gaza-controlling Hamas terrorist organization. The terrorists got a period of quiet in which to regroup and rearm in readiness for the next round of terrorist attacks, he said. In exchange, Israel “got nothing.”

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks "unavoidable" given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's deputies said on Friday. "If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. "Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable," said the former army chief who has also been defence minister...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel is inching toward using military force against Hamas in the Gaza Strip because Egyptian cease-fire efforts there are not "ripening," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday. Olmert, who was wrapping up a U.S. visit dominated by discussions on the dangers of a nuclear Iran, said Israel was not eager to carry out a military operation in the Hamas-controlled territory but would not be deterred if the threat continued. "As it looks now, it's closer to a military operation than to another arrangement," he told reporters. The reason is because Egyptian peace efforts "are not ripening...

Today, President George W. Bush hosted a meeting with Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the Oval Office of the White House. Transcript President Bush congratulated Senator Obama via a statement by Dana Perino: "President Bush congratulates Senator Obama," spokeswoman Dana Perino said. Bush "knows from personal experience that the presidential nominating process is a grueling one, and Senator Obama came a long way in becoming his party's nominee," said Perino. "And his historic achievement reflects the fact that our country has come a long way, too," she said. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, also congratulated Senator Obama. Speaking...

Embarrassed at charges Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had accepted envelopes stuffed with cash from an American businessman, Israelis are doubly stunned to discover that the investigation of Mr. Olmert has won Israel extraordinary praise from bitter enemies throughout the Arab world. "This is democracy at its best. Enough of dictatorship in the Arab world. Let's learn from the Israeli example. Let's benefit from Israel's democracy," a Palestinian named Hani wrote on his blog from the West Bank city of Ramallah. A flood of similar sentiments has appeared on Arabic Web sites in recent days, many of them recorded by journalist...

By all accounts, New York millionaire Morris Talansky cut a sympathetic figure in Jerusalem's District Court on Tuesday. As he described the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash he gave to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert since he first met him in the early 1990s, he convinced his audience that truly the only thing that concerned him was the welfare of the Jewish people. He melted reporters' hearts with his protestations of pure intentions as he described how he let Olmert use his credit card to pay for luxury hotel suites in the US and fancy vacations in Italy. He...

The corruption case against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has earned Israel tremendous respect throughout the Arab world, where many have called on their leaders to benefit from Israel's democratic system and independent judicial system. Even some Arabs who describe themselves as "sworn enemies of the Zionist entity" have begun singing praise for Israel. Over the past week, the corruption case against Olmert received wide coverage in the mainstream Arab media, prompting an outcry about the need for transparency and accountability in the Arab world. "Show me one Arab or Islamic country where a prime minister or a senior government official...

A week after announcing the opening of a door to negotiations with Syria that could endanger Israel’s hold on the Golan Heights, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is battling for his political life. And while he has been cherishing the prospect of making his mark by securing some form of a lasting agreement with the PLO that, too, appears an increasingly futile hope as pressure mounts for the prime minister to resign.

There is a Greek tragedy unfolding today in the Middle East. In response to past mistakes and as a result of hubristic political calculation, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is setting in motion forces that promise to lead inexorably to grief for his nation. The result could be staticide, the destruction of the Jewish State, with incalculably serious repercussions for the Free World in general and the United States in particular.

JERUSALEM - The scandal enveloping Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could force him from power and throw Israel's fractious political system into turmoil. If Olmert exits and his government falls, polls indicate that hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party are well-positioned to take power. That would likely have serious implications for the government's efforts to negotiate peace deals with the Palestinians and with Syria. On Wednesday, one of Olmert's key coalition partners, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said Olmert had to step aside, and he threatened to topple the coalition and go to new elections if he doesn't. Barak's ultimatum left...

JERUSALEM — Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says the country's embattled prime minister must step down to battle corruption allegations. At a news conference Wednesday, Barak said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert cannot manage the country's crucial state of affairs while also coping with a police investigation. Barak says Olmert should suspend himself from office or resign. Barak says if Olmert does not step down, he will take his Labor party out of the governing coalition and form new elections. Olmert's aides say he has no plans to step aside

Defense minister and Labor Chairman Ehud Barak will announce at a press conference scheduled for 1:30 p.m. that he is demanding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert step down of declare himself temporarily incapacitated. Army Radio reported that Barak is also mulling the option of posing an ultimatum whereas Labor will quit the coalition, thus bringing down the government, if the prime minister does not leave office.

Following consultations late Tuesday night, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is seriously considering presenting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with an ultimatum on Wednesday: Either the premier resign, or Barak will pull Labor out of the coalition, thus forcing new elections. Channel 1 first reported on the matter late on Tuesday, saying that Barak made his decision after consulting with advisers at his house. However, the Labor chairman issued a statement soon after which denied that such consultations took place at his home, and that only after holding a meeting with Labor ministers and MKs early Wednesday morning would he actually make...

(IsraelNN.com) Quoting from Israel's criminal legislation at a meeting of the Knesset Golan Lobby on Monday, Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) said that relinquishing territory to Syria is a crime that If it turns out that Olmert is discussing relinquishing the Golan Heights, Eldad said, then he should be charged with treason. entails the death penalty. Dozens of MKs and Golan Heights community leaders participated in the emergency meeting, called in the wake of last week's almost simultaneous announcements by Syrian officials and by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that negotiations were already underway with the Ba'athist dictatorship....

Fear of possible military conflict with Syria prompted renewal of negotiations, prime minister reveals at Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee session. 'We must choose between Greater Israel or a Jewish state,' he says. MK Livnat: Olmert's words 'delusional for someone at the end of his political rope' "Only fantasists can believe that in this day and age, and in the current situation, it is still possible to cling to the vision of 'Greater Israel,' Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday. The prime minister participated in the committee's session to brief them...

Israel will embark on other directives to ensure that calm returns to the south if Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce with militants in the Gaza Strip fails to yield results, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud said on Sunday. "Israel wants quiet and full security for southern communities, and if that won't come to fruition through Egyptian mediation, it will be brought to fruition through other means," Olmert was quoted by local daily Ha'aretz as saying at the weekly cabinet meeting. A Hamas official made a similar comment on Sunday, saying that if Israel and Egypt do not arrange to reopen...

A day after warring neighbors Israel and Syria announced a renewal of peace talks after eight years, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Thursday that both sides know what they need to do for peace. "The Syrians know what we want and we know what they want," Olmert told Kouchner. -snip- Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal told Al Jazeera television on Thursday that Damascus had received guarantees from Israel via Turkey for a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights and rejected conditions put forth for concluding a peace deal. We received commitments and messages from...

Washington: The United States welcomed peace talks between Syria and Israel on Wednesday, saying it does not object to any discussions, but voiced concerns of their success. US officials said they would welcome a peace deal between the two states, but stressed that its main concern would be the Israeli-Palestinian talks. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said they hoped for a more comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East, and would welcome any effort towards that goal. "We are going to work very hard on the Palestinian-Israeli front. We hope for the best on the Israeli-Syrian side and we...

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in September 2006 that "the Golan Heights will remain in our hands forever." He made the statement in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon after a ceasefire failed to win the release of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose kidnapping by Hizbullah terrorists ignited the Second Lebanon War. The Prime Minister announced Wednesday he is conducting indirect peace talks with Syria, which repeatedly has said that Israel's surrendering the strategic Golan is a conditon for peace. After the Second War in Lebanon two years ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad stated...

The global effort to wrest the Jews’ restored homeland from them lurched ahead Wednesday with the revelation that the Olmert government is - and has been for more than a year – preparing to negotiate an agreement with Damascus that is believed to involve Israel’s surrender to Syria of the Golan Heights.

On Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed a U.S. naval blockade of Iran. In talks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he also suggested that nations not allow the entry of Iranian business people and senior regime leaders. Both measures are intended to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. “The present economic sanctions on Iran have exhausted themselves,” Olmert said, according to today’s Haaretz, the Israeli paper, in its online edition. At about the same time that Haaretz reported the news of Olmert’s proposals, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security released a May 13 letter from Iranian Foreign Minister...

The political arena was shaken Wednesday, following an announcement by the Prime Minister's Office that Israel and Syria were holding direct peace talks mediated by Turkey. The political Right immediately connected the dramatic announcement to the legal hot waters Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in, saying that the further the investigation into his alleged bribery offenses becomes, the more dramatic his political move will be. Leaders of the Likud, National Union-National Religious Party and Yisrael Beiteinu factions have demanded that the Knesset hold a special session following the announcement. "Olmert has just proven that he is willing to sell off...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is suspected of having taken envelopes full of cash from a U.S. businessman, the chief prosecutor said on Monday in his most graphic public account of a corruption case against Olmert. (Advertisement) Olmert has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which threatens to force him from office and disrupt his U.S.-brokered peace negotiations with the Palestinians. State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, speaking at a Supreme Court hearing, said investigators suspected New York businessman Morris Talansky had given Olmert "dollars, in cash and in envelopes, during brief meetings from time to time". Olmert's attorneys...

Sunday night, May 11, the Israeli army was poised to strike Hizballah. The Shiite militia was winding up its takeover of West Beirut and battling pro-government forces in the North. When he opened the regular cabinet meeting Sunday, May 11, prime minister Ehud Olmert had already received the go-ahead from Washington for a military strike to halt the Hizballah advance. The message said that President George W. Bush would not call off his visit to Israel to attend its 60th anniversary celebrations and would arrive as planned Wednesday, May 14 - even if the Israeli army was still fighting in...

Following his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel was intent on abiding by the timeframe set at the Annapolis Middle East peace conference to achieve a deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year. At a joint press conference held in Jerusalem, Olmert added that Israel was making enormous efforts to resolve the contentious issues of borders, refugees and security, and laying the groundwork for discussing the volatile issue of Jerusalem in the future. In reference to the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip, Olmert said that Israel will...

Yaakov Borovsky, who headed state comptroller's anti-corruption unit, says that current inquiry against Olmert indicates he will eventually be charged with taking bribes Ahiya Raved Published: 05.12.08, 13:31 / Israel News The current police investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "will eventually lead to an indictment," former senior police officer Yaakov Borovsky said Monday. Major-General (ret.) Borovsky, who headed the anti-corruption department at the State Comptroller's Office, is familiar with details of the probes against Olmert. At a press conference in Haifa to present his candidacy for the city's mayorship, Borovsky noted that the prime minister had already been suspected...