Ehud Olmert died in the war and was buried in investigations. The two years under his governance since the war were not so bad. He knew how to run the Government, knew how to converse with world leaders, made some important security decisions and prepared the ground for peace. Soon, under Mofaz, Livni or Bibi, they will start to reminisce.
Nahum Barnea in Yediot Aharonoth
Prime Minister Olmert has announced that he will resign after Kadima (his party) chooses a new leader in the primary elections that were negotiated under pressure with his rivals amidst the turmoil generated from investigations into his dealings. The investigations center around a disgruntled donor who supported Olmert back when he was Mayor of Jerusalem, well prior to Olmert’s turn to support peace negotiations with Syria and Palestine. I’ve heard from smart insiders that the prime "witness"/corrupt donor – Talansky – is a hawkish marionette of Sheldon Adelson, who may be prodding this investigation in an effort to derail negotiations. Upon hearing Olmert’s announcement, right-wing Knesset members immediately questioned Olmert’s legitimacy in his continued determination to pursue peace negotiations with Syria and the Palestinian Authority.
Some will criticize this as Shimon Peres’s much-discounted "New Middle East" vision, but I love it, and I am confident that if Israelis and Palestinians get their act together and accept the historical compromises necessary to a comprehensive permanent agreement, this will only be the beginning. Check out this vision for the future of the Arava, intersecting Israel, Jordan and Palestine. It fits nicely within OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 Project.
Jerusalem Post Editor David Horovitz’s interview with Barack Obama is one of the most to-the-point expositions of Senator Barack Obama’s stances on Mideast issues. Horovitz asked strong and straightforward questions, and Obama replied with earnest answers. Anyone who truly cares about understanding the "real" Obama on these issues should read this interview.
One example:
Horovitz: You’ve said on this trip that you want to work for an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation from the minute you’re sworn in, so let me ask you about the thesis that there is no prospect of Palestinian moderation prevailing and enabling a peace process to really move forward until Iran’s nuclear drive has been thwarted – that so long as the Teheran-backed extremists of Hamas and so on feel that they are in the ascendant, the moderates can’t prevail and that the whole region is now in this kind of holding mode.
Obama: I think there is no doubt that there is a connection between Iran’s strengthening over the last couple of years, partly because some strategic errors have been made on the part of the West. And [the same goes for] the increasing boldness of Hizbullah and Hamas. But I don’t think that’s the only factor and criterion in the lack of progress.
Hamas’s victory in the [Palestinian Authority] election can partly be traced to a sense of frustration among the Palestinian people over how Fatah, over a relatively lengthy period of time, had failed to deliver basic services. I get a strong impression that [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas and [Prime Minister Salaam] Fayad are doing everything they can to address some of those systemic failures by the Palestinian Authority. The failures of Hamas in Gaza to deliver an improved quality of life for their people give pause to the Palestinians to think that pursuing that approach automatically assures greater benefits.
You know, look, I arrive at this with no illusions as to the difficulty in terms of what is required. But I think it’s important for us to keep working at it, frankly, because Israel’s security and peace in the region depend on it.
James Montague from The Guardian newspaper just posted an article about Eytan Heller’s vision for Israel and Palestine to co-host the World Soccer Cup in 2018, an idea which so far has already spawned OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 Campaign.
Two articles recently posted on PeaceWorks and OneVoice and our efforts…
JEWCY.COM: 
Peace Through Pesto: Daniel Lubetzky Schools Us on Building Bridges and Empowering Moderates, 
by Helen Jupiter, July 11, 2008
and
JERUSALEM POST, Don Quixote comes to Israel, Jul 24, 2008, by Heather Robinson
As painful as it is to bear this in mind, Shlomo Avineri agreed with the view that negotiating with Hezbollah to get the bodies of fallen soldiers in exchange for convicted terrorists, and creating an obsessive cry in the public arena for the release of Gilad Shalit at all costs only plays into Hamas’s hands and is against Israel’s interests. It incentivizes extremism. The logic may be cold, but it is logical:
Shalit’s return is not a primary strategic challenge for Israel.
It is a sign of how messed up the region can get that Palestinians in Gaza were motivated to throw rockets at Israel to try to undo the cease-fire agreement, rekindle the fighting, ensure a continued closure of the borders, preventing imports and trade, and thereby keeping at artificially high levels the prices of seeds they had purchased to sell to farmers within Gaza.
I am not making this up. Hamas, now motivated to keep the cease-fire, arrested Palestinian seed traders who had thrown rockets at Israel, and received their confessions.
I already blogged about my instinctive misgivings with negotiating to exchange imprisoned terrorists for the bodies of fallen soldiers, as well as about the perspective from some Israelis on why it was the right thing to do.
Now that the painful exchange took place, as much as I heard from many Israeli friends how this part of the code that makes Israeli soldiers so dedicated – knowing they will never be left behind, I regret to bring more information to bear on why this was such a damaging act.
It is not just that it empowered Nasrallah and sent a signal to all would-be-enemies of Israel that they can kill any Israeli prisoners and still exchange the bodies for value.
It turns out that even moderate ordinary Palestinians were enveloped in the fever of Nasrallahic heroism, buying Hezbollah’s message. A parade in Ramallah was held to celebrate the release of Samir Kundar, and all the messages addressed to President Abbas stated that the only thing that works with Israel is a strong position to FIGHT, as opposed to negotiate. Palestinians were glued to Al-Manar TV, the Hezbollah station that is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen – pure propaganda, pure hatred. The prisoner exchange was seen as a mythical victory for Nasrallah.
In contrast to my blog entry criticizing the negotiations Israel carried out with Hezbollah to release the bodies of two slain Israeli soldiers in exchange for releasing several terrorists, here are some alternative perspectives from friends I respect:
From an Israeli jurist who asked to remain anonymous:
The problem you raise has no one answer.
Israel did the same transaction before.
Every soldier who goes to take part in war activities has to know that the Israeli government will do the utmost efforts to save him from prison or bring his body back to Israel. For a soldier it is a big relief to have this information.
One can say as you argue that the enemy will not hesitate to kill prisoners of war and yet get in exchange live terrorists. to this terrible dilemma I have no answer.
please remember that Jews in the Golla paid money to release Jews from prison, There is a lot of writing how much to pay in order to release. there were Jews in prison who refused to be liberated saying you are members of poor community or that if the Jewish people will release them this will cause in the future more blackmail.
From Jake Hayman, a British social entrepreneur and OneVoice London executive member:
I understand that it may not be politically the wisest thing to do in the short term, but I think it is noble beyond belief, to an extent that makes Israel actually come out looking stronger.
Hizbullah can ask how Israel can possibly defend itself when even the bodies of the dead mean so much to it, but they will also be lost as to how they can hope to defeat a place so magnaminous. Its about operating a higher moral standard that makes you ostensibly more vulnerable but shows a unity and strength that no one else can even come close to.
I’m not sure i can really articulate it, but I’d like to think I’d do the same and think it may be the best thing in the long run although it obviously sets a scary precedent in the short run and if they can’t live up to the standards they set now it causes a problem, but they set these standards a long time ago and have stuck by them since.
A third, more jaded view:
Nobody can stand to condemn this. It would be political suicide. Widows cannot get remarried under Jewish law if their fallen husbands’ bodies are not recuperated. No one will dare deny them this, even for sound strategic reasons.