Word: olmert
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...hand over 15 Lebanese prisoners - including 10 Hizballah fighters killed during the 2006 war, four jailed Hizballah members and one Lebanese-Druze murderer serving a life sentence in Israel. The deal was brokered by a senior German diplomat with experience in similar prisoner exchanges, sources say. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also confirmed on Sunday for the first time that the kidnapped soldiers had indeed been killed, but failed to inform the soldiers' long-grieving relatives before going public with the news - a "gaffe," as one of the soldiers' family members described Olmert's negligence...
...stop such rockets from raining down on Israeli towns that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert entered into what his critics decry as a pact with the devil. But many in Olmert's cabinet and among his top generals say this was the only sensible course of action: The alternative would have been a full-blown Israeli invasion of Gaza and a drawn-out campaign that would have killed hundreds of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers - and even then, such an offensive would not likely have dislodged Hamas or eliminated its potential to fire rockets at Israel...
...This fragile truce has at least one thing going for it: Both Olmert and Hamas need it. The Israeli Prime Minister, who is being investigated for possible corruption, needs to rebuild his image and thinks he can do it by halting the barrage of rockets fired into southern Israel. Hamas needs the truce because, after a year of hardship in Gaza, its public support is wearing thin...
...probably no coincidence that the odds-on favorite to replace Olmert is a politician with an ironclad reputation for honesty and integrity--she famously insists on always picking up her own tab, even if it's just for a plate of hummus. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is in many ways Olmert's opposite. The Prime Minister is a jokey backslapper and charmer, a consummate pol with expensive tastes in cigars, flashy wristwatches and fountain pens; Livni, 49, is a no-nonsense former Mossad agent who eschews small talk, avoids the Bar Mitzvah circuit most Israeli politicians use to rack...
Livni is the most prominent member of Olmert's Kadima party to have urged that he step down. He has said he will stay on and fight to prove his innocence. (He admits taking money but says he spent it legitimately on campaign expenses.) But if pressure grows, he could step aside, allowing the party to pick a new leader. In a poll of Kadima members, 35% said they wanted Livni as the next party leader, giving her a 10% lead over her closest rival, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former army chief. Livni doesn't try to hide...