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Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli Prime Minister who may be indicted for various corruption charges, is in the US for treatment of prostate cancer. He also taking care of his financial health and is charging up to $70,000 for a speech.

Immediate past-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is set to travel within a week to the United States for an undetermined amount of time for an operation on a prostate cancer that was "microscopic" only 18 months ago. He originally disclosed his condition when he was facing a threat to his government due to criminal probes. The latest update on his condition came shortly before he was supposed to face a hearing on indictment, and he won a court challenge to his plans to leave the country for medical care.

A Yemini court on Monday sentenced to death a Muslim for allegedly writing to outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and offering to spy for Israel. Two other men were sentenced to three and five years in prison. All three denied the charges, and Bassam al-Haidari, who faces death, yelled after the court decision, “This is an unfair ruling. You have sentenced me without any proof of these accusations.”

Days before the expected end of his premiership, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert blasted the Palestinian leadership for lacking the courage to make peace with Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during Sunday's cabinet meeting. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World "I have held contacts with the head of the Palestinian Authority," the prime minister said at Sunday's cabinet meeting. "I have no doubt that these contacts have formed conditions conducive to signing a peace agreement." "I said it in the past and I do not hesitate to repeat it: The State of Israel will have to make unprecedented...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he came close to holding a face-to-face meeting with the Syrian foreign minister just before Operation Cast Lead scuttled indirect peace talks between the two countries. "We were forging a process to end that night, in which the Syrian foreign minister was supposed to get on a plane to Ankara to meet with me," Olmert said. He denied reports that he had held a telephone conversation with Syrian President Bashar Assad during that visit. "I was not with Assad on the line," the prime minister said. "I want to make peace with Syria, that is...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went on a rampage during yesterday's cabinet meeting, lashing out at targets as varied as tennis star Andy Ram, comedian Lior Shlein, Israeli rightists and the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. The official topic of the meeting was the institute's annual report assessing Israel's situation and that of the Jewish people as a whole. But as institute director Avinoam Bar-Yosef was finishing his presentation of the report's main findings, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann passed a note to Olmert drawing his attention to page 31 of the document, which stated that Israel's leadership was about to change...

The Gaza ceasefire has already been broken, just hours after the unilateral truce took hold, as Hamas militants fired a volley of rockets into southern Israel. No one was injured in the attack, in which five rockets were fired into Israel shortly after dawn. But shortly after, security sources in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun reported an airstrike that wounded a woman and her child. The Israeli military made no comment on the claims. In another incident after the truce took hold, militants fired small arms at an infantry patrol, which returned fire, according to the Israeli military....

Israel declares ceasefire in Gaza Israel is to halt its three-week military offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said. Israel had achieved the aims of its operation, Mr Olmert said, and a unilateral Israeli ceasefire would take effect from 0200 (2400 GMT). Earlier, a Hamas spokesman said it would fight until its demands were met. Nearly 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the violence began on 27 December. Thirteen Israelis have died. Minutes before Mr Olmert was due to speak, a rocket was fired from Gaza, a BBC producer in Gaza said. 'Goals...

Attacks on Be'er Sheva Continue (2nd round post ceasefire) (IsraelNN.com) Gaza terrorists fired five rockets at the city of Be'er Sheva shortly before midnight on Saturday. The rockets hit open areas outside the city, and no injuries were reported. Hamas terrorists announced Saturday that they would continue battling Israel despite a unilateral Israeli ceasefire scheduled to go into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday.

Is Ehud's Poodle Acting Up? As Israel entered the third week of its Gaza blitz, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert regaled a crowd in Ashkelon with an astonishing tale. He had, said Olmert, whistled up George Bush, interrupted him in the middle of a speech and told him to instruct Condi Rice not to vote for a U.N. resolution Condi herself had written. Bush did as told, said Olmert. The crowd loved it. Here is the background. After intense negotiations with Britain and France, Secretary of State Rice had persuaded the Security Council to agree on a resolution calling for a...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a telephone call he made to U.S. President George W. Bush last week forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain in a U.N. vote on the Gaza war, leaving her "shamed." Pouring on political bravado in a speech late Monday, Olmert said he demanded to talk to Bush with only 10 minutes to spare before a U.N. Security Council vote Thursday on a resolution opposed by Israel calling for an immediate cease-fire. "When we saw that the secretary of state, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of...

JERUSALEM: Aides say Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stands by his claim that he caused the U.S. to abstain from a U.N. resolution calling for a halt in Gaza fighting. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice negotiated the resolution. Olmert claimed earlier this week that he humiliated Rice by persuading U.S. President Bush to instruct her not to vote for it. Rice spokesman Sean McCormack has called Olmert's claims "100-percent, totally, completely not true." But on Wednesday, Olmert aides said the Israeli leader told the story as it happened. ...

Informed sources in Washington tell Newsmax that Israel indeed will launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities soon – possibly in just days as President George W. Bush prepares to leave office. The reason: The time clock has begun to run out. Iran is close to acquiring a nuclear device under the control of its radical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert placed a direct call to US President George W. Bush on Thursday, demanding that US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice not be allowed to vote in favor of a UN Human Rights Council condemnation of Israel's anti-Hamas Gaza war. According to Olmert, Bush's acquiescence, and his insistence that Rice back down from the resolution, made Rice sizzle.... ..."I said: 'Get me President Bush on the phone,'" Olmert explained during a speech to residents in the Hamas-targeted city of Ashkelon. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia," Olmert said. "I...

Israel's leaders have purposely obscured their war aims in Gaza. But there are only two possible endgames: (A) a Lebanon-like cessation of hostilities to be supervised by international observers, or (B) the disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza. Under tremendous international pressure -- including from an increasingly wobbly U.S. State Department -- the government of Ehud Olmert has begun hinting that it is receptive to a French-Egyptian cease-fire plan... That would be a terrible mistake. It would fail on its own terms. It would have the same elements as the phony peace in Lebanon: ... a cessation of hostilities until...

Disastrously. Jerusalem’s profound strategic incompetence continues and heightens the failed policies since 1993 that have eroded Israel’s reputation, strategic advantage, and security. Four main reasons lead me to this negative conclusion. First, the team in charge in Jerusalem created the Gaza problem. Its leader, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, immortally explained in 2005 the forthcoming unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza: “We [Israelis] are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies.” Olmert had a vital role in (1) initiating the Gaza withdrawal, which ended the Israel Defense Forces’...

Top Israeli officials have given the military the green light for a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip after a week of deadly bombings. "The Israeli leadership has given the thumbs-up for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip," wrote FOX News, quoting unnamed sources. Earlier on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with other cabinet members to discuss a ground offensive into Gaza.

George Orwell once quipped, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it." Since Tuesday it has become clear that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has decided to end the war with Iran's Hamas proxy army in Gaza as quickly as possible. That is, the government has decided to lose the war. Most Israelis are unaware of this state of affairs. In an obvious attempt to bolster the popularity of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak ahead of the February 10 general elections, the local media have spent the six days since the government launched Operation Cast...

If Israel should have learned ONE lesson during the "Second War in Lebanon" it was YOU CANNOT win a war by bombing alone. Yet after a Week of bombing this seems the strategy of the Olmert Government AGAIN. Will Israeli succumb to the growing pressure from the EU and the UN and a NEW president of the US who is NOT pro-Israel ? It seems that way. hey are seriously considering a cease-fire that brings thing back to the status quo of early December, Israel's hands will be tied, Hamas will be free to fire rockets. This will leave Hamas...

The Security Cabinet on Wednesday rejected a French proposal for a 48-hour suspension of the IDF offensive against Hamas to allow Paris the opportunity to mediate a cease-fire, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the proposal would be reconsidered when the time is right. "We didn't initiate the Gaza operation in order to end it while Israeli towns are still under fire, as they were before the operation." said Olmert. "Imagine if after a few days of the offensive we had declared a unilateral cease-fire and a rocket barrage had then hit Ashkelon" he continued. "Israel has shown restraint...