Ehud Olmert officially tenders his resignation as Prime Minister of Israel and Tzipi Livni is expected to take his place. The “Butcher of Lebanon” is no more.

Olmert told his Cabinet yesterday morning that he would resign and followed that with a visit to the official Jerusalem residence of President Shimon Peres — both formalities in a process that began in late July, when Olmert caved under the pressure of multiple corruption probes and announced he would step down after the Kadima primary election.

“This decision was not easy, it was not simple, and it was not taken in an offhanded way,” Olmert said before the start of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. He pledged to help Livni, a longtime rival, form a new government.

“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented to me this evening his resignation as head of the government,” Peres said after the two met. Peres thanked him for his service. Olmert did not talk to reporters.

At stake is political stability in Israel as the clock winds down on a January target date for a peace accord with the Palestinians, set by Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a US-sponsored peace conference last November.

Livni favours negotiations and making concessions to forge a peace agreement, but if she fails to form a coalition, elections would be called, and Israel might not have a new government until next spring. That could freeze peace efforts for months.

Olmert succeeded the popular and respected Ariel Sharon, who was felled by a stroke, and weeks later Olmert led Israel into a war with Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon. The decision to go to war and its inconclusive outcome, along with the damage wrought by almost 4,000 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, decimated Olmert’s popular support.

Then old corruption allegations caught up with him. Police began pressing their investigations, and a key witness testified in a “trial” against Olmert though no charges had been filed. That led Olmert to step down, setting the search for a new leader in motion.

1947. Information collected by the ADL in its spy operations on US citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL’s reports on suspected communists as “hearsay”.

1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department’s internal security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the second most active in the United States after the Soviets.

1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv.

1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attaché in Tel Aviv.

1954 “The Lavon Affair”. Israeli agents recruit Egyptian citizens of Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.

1965 Israel apparently illegally obtains enriched uranium from NUMEC Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, “US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.”)

1967 Israel attacks the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See “Assault on the Liberty,” by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House). In 2004, Captain Ward Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the investigation to conclude accident, even though the evidence indicates the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty’s lifeboats, the most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would have dragged the US into the war on Israel’s side.

1970 While working for Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Richard Perle is caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is done.

1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped. Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle.

1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a “Honey Trap”, using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl.

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, is indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: “Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won’t be Explored in Detail by Panels”

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc’s top-secret airborne spy-camera system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel in 1978, is serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant — with security clearance — on exports of sensitive US technology.

1992 “The Samson Option,” by Seymour M. Hersh reports, “Illicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, Ari Ben-Menashe recalled: “Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts.”

1993. The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco police. Data collected was sent to Israel and in some cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forces the city to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulates a memo warning US military contractors that “Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology.” The report stated that Israel obtains information using “ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties” of US citizens.

1996 A General Accounting Office report “Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors” found that according to intelligence sources “Country A” (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally.” The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, “Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country.” The report described “An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents.” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was “a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel’s LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information.”

The GAO report also noted that “Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes.”

1996 An Office of Naval Intelligence document, “Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare” reported that “US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology.” Jane’s Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that “until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China.” The report noted that this “represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation.” (Flight International, 3/13/96)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, “inadvertently” gives classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as “Dov”, had commented that they may get the letter from “Mega”, the code name for Israel’s top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky’s phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI’s hunt for “Mega” is called off.

2001 It is discovered that US drug agents’ communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse. Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come. The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo, an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade Towers, receives an advance warning via the internet. The manager of the New York Office provides the FBI with the IP address of the sender of the message, but the FBI does not follow up.

2001 The FBI is investigating 5 Israeli moving companies as possible fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 JDL’s Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman. He dies before he can be brought to trial.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art students, have been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used to “deliver furniture.” The next day, police discovered traces of TNT and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that the tests that showed explosives were “false positived” by cigarette smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft stops a truck speeding through a school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public.

2003 Israel deploys assassination squads into other countries, including the United States. The US Government does not protest.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and the Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident submarines. The truck tests positive for explosives.

In a report released on Monday, Lindenstrauss had charged that Olmert used his influence when he was Minister of Labor, Industry and Trade to obtain NIS 7.67 million of government aid for an associate’s businesses between 2000 and 2005. Rahamim Ben-Shushan, an activist in the Likud party’s Central Committee, was given financial assistance from the ministry for four factories operated by his Marina Group.

Further investigation will be conducted and the circumstances surrounding the transactions will be investigated by the authorities concerned in order to discern as to whether Olmert had really abused his power during the time when he was in charge of the Ministry in question.

Tony Blair, who stepped down today as the prime minister of Britain, has been appointed a new senior peace envoy for the Middle East, working on building the framework for a Palestinian state, officials said today.

The widely expected announcement was made at the United Nations in New York and at the State Department, on the same day that violence surged in the Gaza Strip with the killings of at least 13 Palestinians, 11 of them fighters, during Israeli military incursions.

Mr. Blair, who handed his office over to Gordon Brown in London, becomes a senior envoy for the “quartet,” diplomatic shorthand for the four leading outside forces working on peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

The leading American economist Jeffrey Sachs criticized the U.S. and Israel for the collapse of the Palestinian government and the current unrest in Gaza in an opinion article he published in The Jordan Times over the weekend.

U.S. and Israeli policies supporting one faction, Fatah, while deeply isolating the other, Hamas, have been in contradiction to the democratic process in the region that both nations ardently promote, said Sachs. While President Bush encouraged Palestinian democracy, he openly favored Fatah in the elections of January 2006. When Hamas won, the US and Israel immediately cut off funds to the newly elected government, including even Israel’s transfer of Palestine’s own customs revenues, which Israel collects as the occupying authority in control of the borders, said Sachs. Such policies set the course for a violent upset in the occupied territories.

“It is important that we recognize the source of America’s failure, because it keeps recurring, making peace between Israel and Palestine more difficult,” said Sachs. ”The roots of failure lie in the US and Israeli governments’ belief that military force and financial repression can lead to peace on their terms, rather than accepting a compromise on terms that the Middle East, the rest of the world and, crucially, most Israelis and Palestinians, accepted long ago.”

Sachs suggested that one realistic possibility for peace would be Israel’s return to its 1967-borders and economic arrangements for a viable Palestinian state including access to trade routes, water supplies, and other essential needs. Despite discussions and promises in the past decade, Israel has clearly refused to withdraw to these borders and to recognize the political pressure of the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in Palestinian territories, the economist argued. In past peace discussions the U.S. and Israel have managed to come up with plans to protect and sustain the existence of these illegal compounds, especially those in the West Bank, according to Sachs.

Younis explained, in a special interview with the International Press Center (IPC) at the State Information Services (SIS), that killing of number of citizens perpetrated by IOF in each of Rafah, Jenin and Ramallah, was neither the first incident nor the last, because there was a long series of premeditated murder and cold-blooded murder,

“I want to recall an incident that formed a very important to show lies of the Israeli internal security service relating to the issue of bus No. 300 in the year 1984, when IOF arrested two Palestinian militants, the Israeli internal security service claimed that all members of the Palestinian group were killed during the clashes, but later found that two of the resistance fighters were liquidated after having been arrested,” Younis explained.

The director of the center affirmed that this type of murder is considered as war crimes in accordance with the rules of international law.

“Here we are talking about a war crime. After the arrest of a person by an enemy, he deemed to be treated like a war prisoner in accordance with international conventions, so Israel has systematically violated all rules of international law, Therefore, we agree that the actions practiced by Israel are part of a series and rise to war crimes. ” he added.

Regarding the assassination operations by bombing and others, said Younis, it is similar in the description of the death outside the scope of law or fair trial and the judiciary, pointing out that such killings can not be justified in any form.

As for the international community and its role over the Israeli attacks, Younis said: “We believe that the international community accomplices in a large part of what happens, so that in the worst case, there is a political cover for the crimes committed by occupation, such as the United States of America through the voting in the Security Council in favor of Israel and through direct support and equality between the victim and the executioner. ”

“There is a conspiracy of silence towards what is happening, as everyone knew what is or was done by Israelis which is considered as war crimes, and we are not talking here only about the duties must be carried out by the international community and international law given by the international community, we must move to practice pressure on Israel to stop its aggression on the Palestinian people in accordance with the legal rules accepted by their adherence to international conventions,” he added.

For the role of international organizations, Younis said that there were international organizations had and still play an important role to expose the Israeli crimes, and practice pressure on the state of occupation and the international community to complete his legal and moral obligations to civilians in the Palestinian territories. He added: “The international civil society elated millions against the war on Iraq , but millions still stand in line for supporting the Palestinian people and their cause in many conditions.”

He pointed out that there is an enormous work will be carried out in very different parts of the world through solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In his reply over the role of the Palestinian institutions within the state of internal fighting between the Palestinian factions, Younis concluded that “there was an internal fighting, a state of lawlessness, a situation almost to the collapse of values and relations’ system in the Palestinian society, in addition to ongoing aggression on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, adding: “Since all these things have its effects on the Patriotism institutions, There is much work.”

“Where do we begin, what is the priority, the occupation, internal fighting or disturbance” Younis wondered.

Two Palestinian men crawl through an opening not much larger than a shoe box and descend a shaky ladder, into a space filled with the rank smell of urine and cigarette smoke.

This underground, unfinished mall near the junction of two Tel Aviv highways is home for dozens of Palestinian laborers who can’t get scarce work permits. It’s where they disappear each night, living out of sight of Israeli authorities to fill jobs offered by Israeli businesses.

“When you want to work, you are not afraid of anything,” said 23-year-old Abdul Jalil Hamad, who lights a candle on a concrete wall to shed light on his bed, a mattress that he found in the garbage.

To avoid discovery by police, Hamad and his friends send only those with the best Hebrew and cleanest clothes to buy food at a minimarket on a back street. When the police catch him, he returns home to the West Bank with empty pockets, to face 14 family members who rely on his pay.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday lashed out against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Knesset speech that touched on the Second Lebanon War.

Netanyahu addressed the plenum after Olmert spoke and said the prime minister’s functioning during the crisis had weakened Israel’s position.

“The greatest failure as a result of the war is that Israel’s deterrent capability has been severely harmed,” Netanyahu told the Knesset plenum.

The opposition had given the government “full support to achieve the [war's] goals, but [it] failed to do so,” he said.

Israel to Question Billionaire in Probe
Friday April 27, 2007 7:16 AM
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) – A team of Israeli police will leave for Australia next week to question a prominent billionaire about suspicions that Ehud Olmert tried to help him in a bank sale before becoming prime minister, a police spokesman said Thursday.

The case is one of several corruption investigation that have dogged Olmert’s year in office. On Wednesday, Israel’s government watchdog agency recommended opening a criminal investigation against him in a separate influence peddling case.

Officers from the police fraud squad will question Frank Lowy in Australia, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Associated Press. Lowy, a real estate developer and friend of Olmert’s, was No. 172 on Forbes magazine’s latest ranking of billionaires.

The investigation concerns Olmert’s role as finance minister in the government’s 2005 sale of a controlling interest in Bank Leumi, one of the country’s largest financial institutions.

Palestinian FM: Israel not ready for peace talks
Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:14:12

The Palestinian foreign minister says Israel’s prime minister is not going to start “serious negotiations” with Arabs to find a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict.

“I think Olmert is not prepared to take part in serious negotiations with the Arab side,” Abu Amr told a press conference after meeting his Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik in Vienna on Wednesday.

“Whoever does not accept this initiative is not really interested in peace in the Middle East,” Abu Amr added.

The five-year-old peace initiative, revived last week by the Arab League, is a “good basis for peace, for a comprehensive peace,” he said.

Olmert asked Arab leaders to invite him to a summit to discuss a revived Saudi-drafted peace plan but the Arab League Tuesday said Israel is seeking normalized ties with the Palestinian government without making concessions.

Arab League secretary general Amr Musa said the call was not “serious”, adding that Israel wants “normalization of ties for free.”

The initiative calls on Israel to withdraw from all land seized in 1967 and allow the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes.

Israeli sources reported on Tuesday morning that Israeli officials are worried that a Palestinian Unity Government would create international pressure to negotiate with it even if the new government does not fully recognize Israel.

Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, reported that Israel is still skeptical that Hamas and Fateh will be able to agree on a unity government after the recent violence between Fateh and Hamas and the large number of casualties.

Israeli sources said that even if Hamas and Fateh agree on a unity government, fighters of the two movements might still reject it.

Israeli officials are worried that Hamas, which achieved an overwhelming victory in last years’ legislative elections, will be able to maintain its standards of not recognizing Israel, or recognizing the previously signed peace agreements after a unity government is formed.

JERUSALEM – The kiss lasted a few seconds. The morality play it inspired lasted more than six months, riveting Israelis and their legal system on a single question: Did she or didn’t she want it?

The drama ended Wednesday when the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court ruled that the plaintiff, a 21-year-old female army first lieutenant “did not flirt with the accused, did not initiate the kiss, and did not consent to it.”

With that, a three-judge panel convicted Haim Ramon, a founder of the prime minister’s Kadima party and an architect of his ruling coalition, of violating Israel’s sexual harassment law by committing an “indecent act” while he was justice minister.

The unanimous verdict, which could send the 56-year-old divorced man to prison for up to three years, jolted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s scandal-plagued government. Olmert had been confident enough in an acquittal that he was holding the justice post open for Ramon, who had resigned last August to face trial.

But the effect of the ruling went beyond politics. Some legal experts called it an advance for women’s advocates in Israel battling to redefine the boundaries between powerful men and the young women who work around them.

Others said the minister’s conviction was undeserved and would inspire an effort to soften one of the world’s toughest statutes against sexual misconduct.

(IsraelNN.com) Vice Premier Shimon Peres said in an interview published by a Qatari newspaper Thursday that Israel maintains quiet communication with most Arab nations in the Middle East.

Peres, a second-time candidate for the presidency when Moshe Katzavֲ’s term ends July 1st, declined to tell the ֲ“Qatar Tribuneֲ” which Arab countries are in touch with the Jewish State.

Peres said he could not name Israelֲ’s Arab contacts in order to avoid embarrassment on either side.

Few democratic countries are able to completely avoid having the bad odor of corruption rise every so often off the body politic. But the citizens of Israel must be wondering these days what in heaven’s name is going on in their country, founded on the mightiest of ideals.

Right now, the government of Israel seems at times like an application list for a rogues’ gallery.

The prime minister is under investigation for allegedly helping friends in a bank deal; members of his inner office have been arrested in an ugly tax scandal; the president is being investigated on sex-abuse charges, the former justice minister for sexual harassment, and the finance minister for embezzlement; and charges may soon be brought against the defense minister – and head of the Labor Party – for illegal vote-getting. And the list goes on. In addition, two key members of the out-of-power Likud Party also are under investigation.

Is Israel suffering an acute breakdown in government morality? Is this a problem that has been around since the beginning and is just now getting more attention? Or is Israel, in fact, a country where government oversight and the country’s laws are tougher on official wrongdoing than elsewhere?

“Only democracy”, my arse.

Israel’s attorney general, Meni Mazus, says he has notified President Katsav that he will be indicted on charges of rape and other crimes against female employees of the president’s office. Israeli legal procedures allow the president one opportunity to present his case at a hearing before a formal indictment is issued.

The charges, some of the most serious ever faced by an Israeli politician, stem from complaints made by at least four women who worked for Mr. Katsav. Police say the charges are based on interviews with at least 10 women.

Israel’s attorney general says he has collected enough evidence to indict the president on other charges – such as obstruction of justice and receiving illegal gifts.

Shelly Yachimovich, a Labor Party member of Israel’s parliament or Knesset, told Israel’s Channel Eleven news the President should step down immediately.

Yachimovich says if President Katsav does not immediately resign he should be impeached.

Mr. Katsav, who is a member of the right-of-center Likud Party, enjoys presidential immunity from prosecution and can only be tried in criminal court if he resigns, is impeached, or after his term ends, which will happen later this year.