Former Israeli PM Olmert cleared on wrongdoing

One fact is undisputed: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was removed from office due to the "Envelopes of Cash," affair involving Moshe Talansky. Today he was found not guilty, and completely cleared of any wrongdoing in that case. The Rishon Tours affair, also made public during Olmert's term as prime minister, sealed his political-public coffin. He left his post shamed and humiliated, and was publically tagged as a scoundrel, a liar, a schemer and a thief. Politicians, including from his own party, senior journalists and knowledgeable attorneys, all convicted him with the breath of their words - vainly, often gleefully, and beyond all reasonable doubt.

Today he was acquitted on that charge as well. The effect of all those years, and especially the last few weeks, was visibly present in court today: Olmert was never that thin. His eyes sunk in. He looked like the living dead. Though more alive than dead.

Three judges, unanimously, acquitted him of the charges in the two affairs that led to his resignation. Olmert's conduct in these affairs may be far from perfect, or even praiseworthy in the least, but when one recalls the hysteria at the time, the bold headlines, Talansky's first testimony and the serial leaks from the prosecutor's office, the tale about the fishy witness' intention to escape and Olmert's intention of hunting him down (!) – it still make's one hairs stand on end.

The only possible conclusion is that during these years Israeli democracy was desecrated. Abused.