A guilty Olmert on the front page, again

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s conviction on corruption charges — his third conviction to date — takes the front pages by storm on Tuesday after a court overturned a previous ruling that exonerated him.

The court found Olmert guilty of fraud, breach of trust, and aggravated fraud, but the former PM’s lawyer said he plans to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Already ordered jailed for six years on a previous conviction, Olmert now faces another jail term for this one.

“On his way to prison,” reads Israel Hayom’s headline, showing a distraught-looking Olmert on the front page. “The court changed its decision: Olmert is convicted in the Talansky case,” Haaretz says in a banner across the top of its Page 1. “Olmert convicted,” Yedioth Ahronoth says, and splatters the words “[He] deceived and cheated” across his photo.

Yedioth Ahronoth’s pundit Ben-Dror Yemini writes that the conviction has an upside and a downside. An Israeli prime minister, president and finance minister have all been convicted on criminal charges, pointing to corruption in the highest offices, he says. At the same time, however, rule of law has found them guilty and sent them to prison (from September, unless something changes, in Olmert’s case).

Yemini concedes that he was swept up by Olmert when he first entered office offering Israelis “a fresher approach. Not left and not right.” Yemini waxes philosophical, saying that “one can assume that corrupt leaders can be excellent leaders, just as politicians innocent as snow can bring about national disaster.”

“Very senior people who worked under him speak principally of his praises. He made crucial decisions, some of them controversial. He possessed military strength, which included — according to foreign sources — wiping out a nuclear reactor in Syria. He also had political strength, despite the fact that it didn’t bring about an agreement [with the Palestinians],” Yemini says of Olmert. Despite an apparent left-hand turn toward the end of his political career, which some critics said was aimed at helping him in court, Yemini says that Olmert still committed most of his crimes while deep in the right-wing camp.

Israel Hayom opens its coverage with a two-page, 1,200-word legal analysis of the graft case by Mordechai Gilat, a former investigative reporter for Yedioth Ahronoth. After a lengthy detailing of the play-by-play of the case from A to Z, Gilat’s great takeaway is that Olmert is in dire straits: “He’s waiting for a decision in his appeal of the Holyland case, in which he was convicted for receiving bribes and was sentenced to six years in prison,” he reminds us.

He predicts though, that Olmert will not appeal his latest conviction, even though the former premier’s lawyers have said they will.

Ido Baum writes in Haaretz that the hero of the ruling was newly minted Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, who said that the court should have found Olmert guilty three years ago. Because of the broad interpretation of breach of trust employed in Olmert’s conviction, he writes that the former Kadima leader’s conviction “has direct consequences on the case [against] former minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, in whose safe unreported monies were also found.”

As expected, the political cartoonists go after Olmert as well, poking fun at the prime minister’s third conviction in as many years. With Passover approaching fast, Yedioth Ahronoth depicts the former prime minister at the Seder table with his companions reciting the list of plagues that afflicted Egypt. “Blood. Frogs. Lice,” they say, to which he adds “Shula,” referring to his aide, Shula Zaken, whose testimony brought about his latest conviction.

After Olmert denied receiving any envelopes filled with cash from American businessman Moshe Talansky, and was later convicted for taking bribes, Israel Hayom shows him inside “Talansky’s last envelope.”

With his flair for exaggeration, Haaretz’s Amos Biderman shows a decapitated Olmert prostrate beside a knife-wielding Zaken, who is dressed like the Islamic State’s Jihadi John. Olmert’s disembodied head says “We’ll appeal to the Supreme Court.”

Elsewhere in the news, Haaretz reports on a “dead end” in the nuclear talks between Iran and world powers in Lausanne as the deadline approaches on Tuesday. It reports that the US Congress is waiting in the wings, ready to impose additional sanctions on Tehran. Israel Hayom reports that the Obama administration is under “immense pressure” to reach a framework agreement. In light of Iran’s refusal to export enriched uranium as part of a deal, the State Department said it will be forced to consider its options should a deal fall through.

Yedioth Ahronoth buries the issue on Page 12, taking a wait-and-see approach. It quotes an unnamed British diplomat saying that “the gaps are large, and even if a deal is reached the work is strewn with mines on the way to a final deal in June.”