Ehud Olmert

In, in the case of one younger political mover and shaker I was talking to this week, his entire lifetime.

In other words, this was somebody who's been born after Netanyahu became prime minister for the first time.

That's how long he's been around.

Everyone sort of assumes he can't be counted out.

He has never sa- uh, s- uh, taken any responsibility.

On the contrary, in this campaign, he's been going on the offensive to say, "I didn't know.

They didn't wake me up." He's-- his wife has, uh, propelled, but, you know, advanced among other people, this conspiracy theory that maybe people at the senior levels of the military did know, but they deliberately withheld this knowledge from the prime minister, uh, so that what? So that he would be exposed, vulnerable, pushed out of office.

Wild conspiracy theories, which we should stress are baseless.

Pressure mounts on Israel as the UK, France, and Canada announce sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements.

I speak to the former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

Then, purges at the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tightens his grip at home as America wages war abroad.

And there is growing pressure from inside Israel, too.

This summer, dozens of prominent figures signed a letter demanding action to eradicate Jewish terrorism, as they said, in the West Bank.

Among them was the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and he's joining me now from Tel Aviv.

Welcome back to our program, Prime Minister.

The UK will ban goods made in illegal settlements in the Palestinian territory and will also act against companies and individuals providing services for settlement expansion.

Israel's Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa'ar, has announced countermeasures, but the former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, says Israeli settler violence against Palestinians is opposed in Israel as well.

I'm not surprised.

We anticipated that a harsh reaction will come from different friendly countries that just can't tolerate the atrocities, uh, accomplished by, uh, and carried out by, uh, Israeli settlers, uh, in the West Bank.

We should always be proud that it was a Labour government that took the historic step of recognising the state of Palestine.

Yeah! But the Prime Minister is right to say that the Labour government has not done enough in the face of what is happening.

So today marks the beginning of a new approach.

an approach that not only calls out injustice and suffering, but acts.

I mean, if you actually go back to her first term in office, you had a situation where the Israeli government was extremely right-wing.

Meneshim Begin was in power.

That's actually the first liquid politician to become, I think, the prime minister or the president.

And that's Netanyahu's party, we should say.

Well, now we're into sort of

deadliest warrior, right? Because Ehud Olmert was in like the Israeli special forces.

So you've got kind of an alien versus Predator situation there, you know?

Or also, like, look, Eric Adams is amazing at finding stuff, right? Like, you could send...

But no, nobody could care less.

Now, the bigger irony here is that the Palestinians were offered a state by most recently Ehud Olmert, before that by Ehud Barak.

It's not that they weren't offered a state, they were offered a state repeatedly.

And it's not that they said, great, we'll take it, but let's negotiate.

In other Gaza news, a fatality was reported following a vehicle attack in Khan Yunis.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed strong support for Britain's recent decision to sanction dealings with West Bank settlements.

Olmert described extremist settlers as a group of murderous criminal terrorists engaged in a violent and criminal effort to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homes.

Internationally, hundreds of Thais rallied against Israeli tourists outside Israel's embassy in Bangkok, displaying anti-semitic messages such as Jews out protesters also accused Israelis of misbehavior and exploiting Thai culture protests were planned in Phuket and the Israeli embassy is actively working with Thai agencies to address concerns and ensure mutual respect On a different note, Japan has lowered its travel advisory level for Israel from Level 3 to Level 2, advising against unnecessary travel.

And alongside with the late Shimon Peres, they created the centrist Kadima outfit that was supposed to lead Israel from the middle, a hard line on security and security and a pragmatic party that was supposed to bring the country together.

We won, we were formed, Ariel Sharon got a stroke, but we nevertheless ran within three months of our formation to the 2006 election led by Prime Minister Olmert.

We won the election and were the ruling party of Israel between 2006 and 2009.

And then the chief opposition party between 2009 in 2013.