the Knesset's powerful Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee from 1981,
he helped push through budget-
ing for new settlements in the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank and was an
uncompromising spokesman for the
government's policy at the time of not
countenancing any outreach to the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
The first sign of change came after
the 1988 elections, when Olmert
became a minister without portfolio
in charge of minority affairs. In inter-
views immediately after the elections,
he said his first priority would be to
crush the nascent Islamist movement
that was winning municipal elections
across Israel's Arab sector.
Within months, however, Olmert
was delivering that
rarest of political pro-
nouncements: an apol-
ogy. The Islamists, he
said, were principally
interested in better-
ing the lives of their
constituents and he
was ready to work with
them.
It was around then that the other
strand of Olmert's career also emerged
as he found himself the subject of
criminal allegations.
As Likud campaign manager in
the 1988 elections, he was accused of
authorizing the wiretapping of Labor
Party headquarters. Though the accus-
er was the private detective who had
carried out the wiretapping, Olmert
managed to emerge unscathed.
Olmert began entertaining party
leadership ambitions, sowing an
intra-party enmity with Benjamin
Netanyahu, another Likud scion.
Olmert always seemed the less-likely
candidate: He lacked the smoothness
of his rivals and preferred the crude
thrust in his political rhetoric, ventur-
ing into territory others would avoid.
In his successful run for Jerusalem
mayor in 1993, Olmert mocked leg-
endary Mayor Teddy Kollek's advanced
years. Three years later he told report-
ers that between Netanyahu and
Shimon Peres, Netanyahu was the
"more Jewish" candidate for prime
minister — a loaded reference to
longstanding slanders that Peres'
mother was an Arab.
Yet Olmert, when he wanted, could
be charming, especially when it came
to the Americans. He formed fast
friendships with American Jewish
organizational leaders, members of
Congress and others — particularly
Rudolph Giuliani, another blunt-talk-

ing mayor.
For a political survivor, Olmert at
times betrayed a surprisingly thin
skin, calling newspapers and asking
them to remove reporters he did not
favor. When a local Jerusalem news-
paper in 1994 uncovered his ties to a
group that advocated in the 1970s for
the aliyah of American Jewish mob-
ster Meyer Lansky — an association
Olmert did not need as he climbed the
political ladder — Olmert strode over
to the newspaper's editor at a party
and tossed a glass of water in her face.
His two terms as Jerusalem mayor
were undistinguished. His most ambi-
tious project, an expensive light-rail
system, remains mired in the planning
and construction stages five years

Olmert's loyalty to Sharon
and political skills won him
the deputy prime minister post.

after Olmert's reign. Poverty in the city
grew during Olmert's 10-year tenure,
infrastructure suffered and, unlike
Kollek — who made a point of hear-
ing out Arab complaints — Olmert
essentially shut down the municipali-
ty's Arab affairs department.
It was around the time that Olmert
served as mayor that he cultivated
many of the relationships with U.S.
Jewish leaders that would culminate
in this year's multiple police investiga-
tions. Wealthy Jewish businessmen
were attracted by Olmert's pledges to
preserve Jerusalem's Jewish character.
Allegedly, that's when the envelopes
stuffed with cash — ostensibly for
political campaigns — began chang-
ing hands.
Such behavior did little to dis-
pel accusations by his rivals that
he was using the mayor's office to
set up another run for prime min-
ister. In 2003, Olmert rejoined the
Knesset, again running the Likud's
successful campaign. His loyalty to
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his
political skills won him the post of
deputy prime minister, even though he
remained one of the party's less-popu-
lar figures.
Less popular in Israel, that is:
Olmert remained well liked among
American Jews, where he spearheaded
the campaign to explain Sharon's
late-life conversion to land-for-peace

Olmert on page A22

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A21