Feet of clay

Ever since his days as a rising Knesset Member in the mid-1980s, former prime minister Ehud Olmert has been plagued by allegations of sleaze. But like an unfloorable bobo doll, he somehow always seemed to stay on his feet, always one step ahead of the law.

Until March 31. Five years after being forced to resign under a cloud of alleged bribery and corruption, Olmert was convicted on charges that could see him spending time in jail.

In what appears to have been the biggest real estate scam in Israeli history, Tel Aviv District Court Judge David Rozen found Olmert and nine others guilty of taking bribes to further the construction of a huge architectural monstrosity that dominates the Jerusalem skyline.

The Holyland residential complex is not only an eyesore; it is built on a green hilltop initially zoned as parkland and its dimensions seem to defy regular building restrictions.

For years, even before any charges had been leveled, the word in Jerusalem was that such a glaringly disharmonious and oversized project could only have come about through wholesale bribery of top city officials.

Rozen was particularly harsh on Olmert, who had been mayor of Jerusalem for much of the relevant period. Olmert, he said, was “tainted by corruption,” glib-tongued and disingenuous, and, in trying to undermine the credibility of the state’s witness who incriminated him, had lied to the court.

The Holyland affair broke after a falling out over commissions wheeler-dealer-turned state’s witness Shmuel Dechner claimed the landowner and developers owed him.

Dechner went to the police with a tale of bribery and corruption involving Olmert, Uri Lupolianski, the mayor who succeeded him, Olmert’s long-serving bureau chief Shula Zaken, former city engineer Uri Sheetrit, landowner Hillel Cherney, developer Avigdor Kelner and others.

According to Dechner, at Olmert’s behest, he had given NIS500,000 ($143,000) to Olmert’s younger brother Yossi, who owed large sums to loan sharks after costly but unsuccessful campaigns for a place on the Likud Knesset slate in 1996 and for mayor of Ra’anana in 1998. In testimony in the US, where he fled to escape his creditors, Yossi Olmert initially denied having received money from Dechner. But when threatened with deportation if he lied, he confirmed Dechner’s account.

In the judge’s view, there was no way Dechner would have given Yossi Olmert such a large sum of money other than for favors in the Holyland project; and there was no way Ehud Olmert could not have known about it.

In Rozen’s view, this and a further NIS60,000 ($17,000) paid by Dechner to cover the cost of political polling for Ehud Olmert himself, constituted clear-cut bribes.

Olmert intends to appeal. He claims he never asked for money to be transferred to his brother, and doubts whether any transfer took place. And, even if it did, he claims he knew nothing about it. In their appeal, his lawyers will argue that there was no smoking gun. The checks supposedly handed to Yossi Olmert were never traced, nor were transfers to Yossi Olmert from any of Dechner’s bank accounts. Moreover, Dechner died before he could be cross-examined on the specifics of the Yossi Olmert affair.

The thrust and parry throws into sharp relief the overarching argument between Ehud Olmert and the state prosecution. The prosecution holds that Olmert is intrinsically corrupt, but most of the time too clever to be caught. As evidence, it cites the plethora of corruption cases opened or brought against him over the past three decades. Olmert insists that the prosecution has long waged a personal vendetta against him, and as evidence cites the very same cases, pointing out that most of them were either dropped without charges being laid or saw him acquitted in court. For the prosecution, Olmert is a serial offender; in Olmert’s view, he is a serial victim of an overzealous prosecution.

Indeed, after being forced to resign as prime minister, Olmert accused then state attorney Moshe Lador of abusing his legal power to carry out a “coup d’état.” Not only had the elected prime minister been forced to step down, but in both the Lador-led cases that prompted his resignation – allegations of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from an American businessman and multiple billings for fund-raising trips abroad – he was subsequently found not guilty.

That could change. In both cases the state has appealed against Olmert’s acquittal, and it now has a trump card. Zaken, Olmert’s once ultra-loyal secretary, who in the past had been prepared to take a fall for her boss and refused to testify against him even at the cost of incriminating herself, has now turned against him and is in the process of handing over to police recordings and other evidence of wrongdoing and obstruction of justice, including pressure on her not to talk. This new material could prove devastating to Olmert’s cause.

Ehud Olmert was born on September 30, 1945, into a revisionist family of modest means and grew up in the sleepy hamlet of Binyamina, between Haifa and Tel Aviv. His Russian-born father Mordechai served for six years as a Knesset Member in Menachem Begin’s Herut party.

YOUNG EHUD burst onto the political scene, when, as a 20-year-old student activist, he had the gall to stand up at a party convention and demand that Begin, the peerless leader, step down after losing six consecutive elections. He was noticed by Shmuel Tamir, a more seasoned Begin rival, who took Olmert with him when he broke away from Herut in 1967 to form the liberal Free Center. It was on the Free Center ticket – now part of the Likud – that Olmert was first elected to the Knesset in 1973, at 28, the youngest member of the House.

Olmert kept close to Tamir, establishing a pattern that would repeat itself throughout his political career: attachment to a strong patron, while keeping open his capacity for independent political action. First, it was Tamir; then, in the mid-1970s, Independent Center leader Eliezer Shostak; in the mid-80s and early 90s, then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir; and, from 2003-2006, Ariel Sharon.

In each case, Olmert would loyally serve the patron’s agenda, and, in return, the patron would help advance his political career. Shamir made him a cabinet minister; Sharon paved the way to the premiership.

Soon after entering the Knesset, Olmert launched a high profile crusade against corruption. Working in tandem with former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid, he uncovered an alarming degree of underworld involvement in Israeli sport. He also took on organized crime, which led to a dramatic showdown with a former general, Rehavam Ze’evi, whom he accused of consorting with criminals. Ze’evi sued for libel. The case was dropped only after Begin intervened to reconcile the two men.

Olmert’s most sensational corruption-busting action came in December 1976, when he claimed to have obtained documents showing that police were about to launch a criminal investigation against then housing minister Avraham Ofer of Labor. A week later, Ofer committed suicide. Nothing was ever proven against him, and the family blamed Olmert for Ofer’s death.

The irony, given the subsequent trajectory of Olmert’s career, is staggering.

Corruption stories against him began to surface as early as the mid and late 1980s.

In 1981 he received a $50,000 loan from the Bank of North America which he was not pressed to pay back or charged interest. When the story broke with the bank’s collapse in 1985, the circumstances suggested a possible attempt to bribe a sitting Knesset Member.

Olmert, however, was not prosecuted.

He was indicted though on charges relating to the Likud’s 1988 election campaign. The party issued fictitious receipts to donors for services never rendered, a scam that enabled it to raise funds above the prescribed limit.

Although he was campaign co-treasurer and had signed a false audit, Olmert argued that he had only been responsible for fund-raising abroad and had nothing to do with the scam.

He was acquitted, while three other Likud co-defendants were convicted.

The scandals did not stop Olmert’s meteoric rise. A government minister without portfolio at 42, he became health minister in 1990 and played a key role in pressing the stonewalling Shamir into attending the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference.

When Shamir stepped down after losing the 1992 election to Labor’s Yitzhak Rabin, Olmert decided to run for mayor of Jerusalem, hoping to use the high-profile office as a launching pad to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu, Shamir’s young and inexperienced successor, for the party leadership. Olmert was elected mayor in November 1993, unseating the legendary Teddy Kollek, and when Netanyahu became prime minister in June 1996, Olmert adopted ultra-hawkish positions, trying initially to outflank him from the right.

HIS MOST blatant attempt to undermine Netanyahu came in the 1999 elections, when he publicly mocked the Likud leader’s slogan that Ehud Barak, the Labor candidate, “would divide Jerusalem” – and allowed Labor to use the clip in its campaign ads.

In the run-up to the 2003 national election, Sharon, who had succeeded Barak as prime minister in 2001, urged Olmert to leave City Hall and join him on the national stage. In the Likud primaries, Olmert, still smarting from his perceived support for Barak in 1999, won only 34th place on the party’s Knesset list. Nevertheless, Sharon promised him the Finance Ministry. When he appointed Netanyahu instead, Sharon compensated Olmert by making him minister of trade and industry, and deputy prime minister. It was that second appointment, which otherwise would probably not have been made, that catapulted Olmert to the premiership after Sharon’s stroke in January 2006.

Olmert had been the minister closest to Sharon on the government’s biggest issue: the disengagement from Gaza in the summer of 2005. He floated the initial trial balloons, helped Sharon carry it through against stiff party and settler opposition, and then helped engineer Sharon’s breakaway from the Likud to form Kadima with an eye to the next phase: unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank.

In May 2006, Olmert became Israel’s 12th prime minister in his own right, after winning the March election on a promise to set Israel’s permanent borders by 2010.

His grand vision entailed withdrawal from most of the West Bank “by negotiation if possible, unilaterally if necessary” and a fullfledged peace treaty to set the borders with Syria. Although he invested a great deal of energy on both tracks, he ultimately failed to achieve a meaningful breakthrough on either.

He spent countless hours in secret negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and claims to have come close to a deal. On the Syrian track, he used Turkey’s good offices in a bid to create a negotiating framework. His confidants claim that had he had more time, he could have concluded agreements that would have secured Israel’s place among the nations as a democratic Jewish-majority state with universally recognized borders.

As prime minister, Olmert ran a tight ship, proved himself a brave decision-maker and forged excellent relations with world leaders.

He showed courage in making unprecedented moves for peace on the Palestinian track and, according to foreign sources, in ordering the bombing of a Syrian nuclear facility in September 2007. He also waged two wars, against Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2008-2009. His backers say those campaigns helped restore Israeli deterrence; they point out that the northern front has since been quiet for nearly eight years and Gaza, with the exception of a major flare-up in November 2012, has also been relatively calm.

Nevertheless, it was the war against Hezbollah which came only two months after he was sworn in as prime minister which marked the beginning of the end for Olmert as national leader. He was criticized for his impulsive decision to attack immediately after a border incident in which eight soldiers were killed and two abducted; for not knowing that the army was ill-equipped and ill-prepared; for the home front being subjected to 34 successive days of missile and rocket barrages with the IDF seemingly powerless to stop them; for hesitating over launching a ground operation which could have ended the war earlier, and then launching one costing 33 soldiers’ lives when it was too late and patently unnecessary.

The Winograd Commission set up in the wake of the poor conduct of the war did not blame the prime minister. The public, however, was less forgiving. Just nine months after he formed his new government, a poll in the mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth, in late January 2007, showed that three out of every four Israelis wanted Olmert to resign. In a straight choice for prime minister, it showed that 45 percent wanted Netanyahu and only 9 percent Olmert.

Olmert’s position had been further complicated by the first of a new wave of corruption scandals that would eventually bring him down. Earlier that month police had launched an investigation into his amendment of a tender for the sale of Bank Leumi when he was finance minister in late 2005. They suspected that the changes were meant to help his friend, Australia-based tycoon Frank Lowy. Olmert insisted they were made to maximize state profits. Lowy never bought the bank and the case was closed in December 2008.

When the Bank Leumi affair broke, Olmert was already under investigation for suspected corruption in the purchase of a home on Jerusalem’s Cremieux Street. The suspicion was that he had paid $320,000 less than the $1.6 million market price, a discount received in return for helping the construction firm involved acquire further building permits.

The case was closed in August 2009.

Earlier he had been suspected of a scam with regard to his villa on Kaf-Tet Benovember Street in Jerusalem, which he sold in 2004 to an American billionaire friend, S. Daniel Abraham, for $2.69 million, and then leased it back at the relatively low rental price of $2,250 a month. That case was closed in February 2006.

But the perceived stain on Olmert’s reputation remained. And things only got progressively worse. In April 2007, it emerged that the prime minister was also under investigation for wrongdoing when minister of trade and industry between 2003 and 2005.

He was suspected of giving preference to clients of former law partner and right-hand man, Uri Messer, and of making dozens of political appointments in the ministry’s Small Business Center.

A YEAR later, by far the biggest graft case involving Olmert erupted. He was suspected of receiving around $600,000, much of it in unreported cash-stuffed envelopes, over a 13-year period between 1993 and 2006, from Morris Talansky, a wealthy Long Island-based financier and fund-raiser. Olmert claimed the money was for various political campaigns, for mayor of Jerusalem and Likud leader. Police suspected bribery and violation of campaign limits.

The public had barely caught its breath on the Talansky affair when two months later, in July 2008, the so-called “Rishon Tours” scandal broke. Olmert was accused of masterminding a system whereby his travel agent would bill several organizations for the same flight on fund-raising trips and put the surplus aside to fund flights for members of Olmert’s immediate family. Police investigators estimated that Olmert had gained $92,164 in this way.

The accumulation of corruption allegations made his position as prime minister untenable. He resigned in September 2008, but stayed on as acting prime minister until Netanyahu took over in March 2009.

The “Small Business Center,” “Talansky” and “Rishon Tours” cases went to trial in the Jerusalem District Court. Ironically, in July 2012, Olmert was acquitted on most of the charges that had led to his resignation. The “Talansky” and “Rishon Tours” cases were thrown out for lack of evidence incriminating Olmert himself. And in the Small Business Center affair he was convicted on the relatively minor charge of breach of trust, for which he received a one year suspended sentence and a fine of NIS75,300 ($21,500).

Although many found the court verdict astonishing, Olmert claimed he had been vindicated. He even contemplated returning to politics and running at the head of a centrist list in the 2013 election, but, with the Holyland case still pending, decided against it.

Now with the Holyland conviction, those comeback hopes have finally been dashed.

Ehud Olmert is a tragic figure: a potentially history-making national leader, a man blessed with great intelligence and leadership qualities brought low by the flaws of arrogance, avarice and a belief that he was smart enough to cut corners.

His great strategic failure was in not getting Israel the permanent borders he aspired to. For the right, it showed that no matter how far it goes Israel has no genuine partner for peace; for the left, it showed that peace is within reach for a leadership that really wants it.

In 2003, Sharon invited Olmert to join him in doing “great things for Israel.” Ultimately they failed, leaving the work of securing the Zionist enterprise by creating conditions for a Jewish and democratic Israel in permanent, internationally recognized borders still undone.

A potentially history-making national leader, Ehud Olmert was brought low by avarice and arrogance.