Israel's discredited Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had this to say about peace negotiations with the Palestinians on his farewell visit to President George W. Bush: "In principle there is nothing to prevent us from reaching an agreement on the core issues in the near future. I believe it is possible. I believe it is timely. A declaration is needed. I am ready to make it. I hope the other side is [ready]."

News flash from me to Olmert: the other side has not even begun to be ready. Or rather, they're ready to take over Israel, but not to make peace. Besides, you're not the one to negotiate for us, because your motive is pure self-aggrandizement.

The above quote is typical of Olmert's comments and actions in the twilight of his political career. But it wasn't always so. Olmert, born in 1945 in the Yishuv (pre-state Israel) was groomed as a "Likud Prince," one of several sons of illustrious figures in Likud's predecessor party, Herut. (Benyamin Netanyahu is another such prince.) As a "legacy" member of the Likud Party, Olmert followed in the footsteps of his father, Mordechai Olmert, who had been a member of the Irgun, an underground right-wing paramilitary group led by future Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Olmert served with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Golani combat brigade. After recovering from injuries sustained during his service, he completed his military duties as a journalist for an official IDF publication. It was during the Yom Kippur War that Olmert joined the headquarters of Ariel Sharon as a military correspondent. Later, as a young crusading lawyer in 1970s Jerusalem, Olmert investigated and helped to weed out corruption within Israeli football clubs.

Olmert became Israel's then youngest Knesset member in 1973, elected as a part of the right-wing Likud Party led by Menachem Begin. He first served as minister without portfolio, responsible for minority affairs, before a stint as minister of health from 1990 until 1992. He left the Knesset following Likud's defeat in the 1992 elections and successfully ran for mayor of Jerusalem a year later. During his two fiveyear terms as mayor, Olmert remained a strong Rightist, but he didn't reach the stature of his predecessor, the legendary Teddy Kollek, who served Jerusalem for 28 years before his defeat at age 82 by Olmert.

In 2000, Ariel Sharon headed the Likud Party and was elected prime minister. Likud soon began to split between the hardliners and those centrists who backed Sharon, when he verged sharply toward the center of the political spectrum and actively pursued withdrawal from Gaza. Many people believe that Sharon's "conversion" to press for unilateral withdrawal of all Israelis (soldiers and residents) from Gaza was a ploy to divert attention from the many police investigations of his financial dealings and as a way of enamoring himself to the overwhelmingly liberal Israeli media.

Netanyahu, who had been the dynamic and controversial minister of finance, resigned in protest just before the implementation of Sharon's disengagement plan, which took place in August 2005. Olmert, as the closest follower of Sharon among the Likud Princes, already held the position of deputy prime minister and Sharon appointed him to be Netanyahu's replacement. This cemented the strong bond between Olmert and Sharon.

There was huge opposition in Likud to Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. In November 2005, shortly after being reelected prime minister, Sharon left the Likud and started the Kadima party. His purpose was to finalize and carry out the withdrawal in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) while taking many of his followers, including Olmert, with him. With Sharon's incapacitation later that year, Olmert became acting prime minister. In quick succession, he was voted head of the Kadima Party and led Kadima to victory in the ensuing spring of 2006 election. His victory was based on his avowal to continue Sharon's plans for unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, which the public then supported.

Olmert's disastrous tenure as prime minister was foreshadowed by his 2005 address to the Israel Policy Forum, in which he said, "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies." Just a few months after taking office, Olmert began the ill-fated Second Lebanon War in response to Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers on the northern border. Having appointed the totally inexperienced Amir Peretz as Minister of Defense, Olmert began the war without a clue as to the preparedness of the IDF and without a plan to back up his vainglorious pronouncement to the Israeli people, promising the return of the soldiers and the destruction of Hezbollah. Olmert's equally inexperienced appointee, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, worsened the outcome of the war by pushing for the adoption of UN Resolution 1701, which has allowed Hezbollah to quadruple the number of missiles it aims at Israel.

Since the debacle in Lebanon, Olmert has busied himself in worse than pointless negotiations with the impotent Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, in an attempt to hamper and limit Israel's ability to freely negotiate in the future. In the meantime, numerous criminal investigations of Olmert's influence peddling and illegal financial transactions have been carried out, eventually forcing Olmert to "resign" as prime minister. Accordingly, Olmert has been the acting prime minister and lately the interim prime minister, in anticipation of new elections in early 2009. Completely discredited by his impending indictment for theft of state funds, Olmert has reiterated his conviction to remain in power until he's actually hauled off to court.

Like Ariel Sharon in his last phase of legal entanglement, Olmert is primarily concerned with achieving something - anything - that might possibly lighten his dismal legacy. He has strayed far from his rightwing heritage. In Olmert's so-called "legacy interview" (Israeli daily

"Yediot Aharonoth" 9/29/08), Olmert stated that in exchange for peace, Israel should withdraw from "almost all" of the West Bank and share its capital city, Jerusalem, with the Palestinians. He stated that the Jewish

state should be ready to give up the Golan Heights as part of a negotiated peace deal with Syria. And he dismissed as "megalomania" any suggestion that Israel should act by itself to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.

Some people, especially those on the left-wing, may agree completely with Olmert's statements. In my opinion, his efforts at negotiating and his handing over control of Jenin, Hebron, and other cities in the West Bank to Palestinian security services (terrorists trained and equipped by misguided U.S. and EU advisors) are defeatist and ill-advised. I base my opinion on the fact that the Palestinians and the Arab League are not one iota closer to recognizing the validity of the Jewish State of Israel than they were in 1948.

With his integrity lost, his popularity nil, and his position as prime minister only a stopgap until the upcoming election in March, Olmert is endangering Israel by his effete and ill-advised attempts to ennoble himself before the end of his disgraceful political career. Probably, he'll continue to be an influence peddler later on (after a jail term), in addition to giving lucrative speeches to North American audiences. One can only imagine what Olmert's father would think, if he knew what his son has done and what he continues to do, undermining the

future of Israel.

Stephen Kramer resided and worked in the Atlantic City area until 1991, when he moved to Israel with his wife, Michal Langweiler, and two sons. He can be reached at Sjk1@jhu.edu.