'The Time Has Come to Say These Things'

"We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the [occupied] territories."

By Ehud Olmert
New York Review of Books
(TM Note: see Roger Cohen piece, below.)

On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Israel's most popular daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, published an extended interview of lame-duck prime minister Ehud Olmert by journalists Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer. Olmert is a former mayor of Jerusalem (1993–2003), member of the Knesset, and cabinet-level official. In 2005, he left the right-wing Likud party and joined the Kadima party, a centrist alliance formed by then prime minister Ariel Sharon in the wake of Israel's "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip. Olmert, who served as deputy prime minister in the Kadima-led government, assumed the premiership in 2006 when Sharon suffered a stroke. He announced his intention to resign this July amid a growing corruption scandal and a dismal public approval rating that never recovered from his failed 2006 war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

On September 21, upon tendering his official resignation, Olmert became head of an interim government and will hold that position until a new prime minister is sworn in. Under Israeli law, the prime minister–designate, Kadima's Tzipi Livni, had forty-two days from the resignation to form a workable ruling coalition. On October 26, Livni announced that she had failed to do so. A general election will take place next year.

The following are excerpts from the Yedioth interview, which Olmert gave hours after handing in his letter of resignation.

(Continued here.)