On 4 May 2006, Olmert presented his new government to the Knesset. Olmert became prime minister and
minister for welfare. Control over the Welfare Ministry was expected to be given to
United Torah Judaism if it would join the government. The post was later given to Labor's
Isaac Herzog. Olmert took over as acting prime minister of Israel after Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke. On 24 May 2006, Olmert was invited to address a joint session of the
U.S. Congress. He stated that his government would proceed with the
disengagement plan if it could not come to agreement with the Palestinians. Olmert was the third Israeli prime minister to have been invited to speak at a joint session of Congress. Following the
2006 Lebanon War, Olmert's popularity ratings fell and, on 15 September 2006, former chief of staff
Moshe Ya'alon publicly stated that Olmert should resign. In May 2007, Olmert's approval rating fell to 3%, and he became the subject of a
Google Bomb for the Hebrew for "miserable failure". and
Mahmoud Abbas. On 9 December 2006, Olmert stated that he could not rule out the possibility of a military attack against
Iran, and called for the international community to step up action against that country. He called Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated threats to destroy Israel "absolutely criminal", and said that he expected "more dramatic steps to be taken". In an interview with German TV network
Sat.1 on 11 December 2006, Olmert included Israel in a list of nuclear powers, saying: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?" He immediately attempted to backtrack, insisting that Israel's doggedly held position of nuclear weapons ambiguity had not changed. He nonetheless came under harsh criticism from both ends of the Israeli political spectrum due to the perceived threat to Israel's
policy of ambiguity regarding its
nuclear status. On 2 May 2007, the
Winograd Commission accused Olmert of failing to properly manage the 2006 Lebanese War, which prompted a mass rally of over 100,000 people calling for his resignation. Olmert welcomed the
Arab League's 2007 re-endorsement of the
Arab Peace Initiative. Olmert wrote in
The Guardian newspaper that Israel was ready to make "painful concessions" to achieve peace with the Palestinians. "I take the offer of full normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously; and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner. Working with our Jordanian and Egyptian partners, and hopefully other Arab states, we must pursue a comprehensive peace with energy and vision.... But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum." On 4 November 2007, he declared Israel's intention to negotiate with the Palestinians about all issues, stating, "
Annapolis will be the jumping-off point for continued serious and in-depth negotiations, which will not avoid any issue or ignore any division that has clouded our relations with the Palestinian people for many years." On 29 November 2007, he warned of the end of Israel in case a two-state solution is not eventually found for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished", Olmert said on the last day of the
Annapolis Conference. "The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us", Olmert said, "because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents". During the talks, Olmert agreed that Israel would share
Jerusalem as the joint capital of Israel and a Palestinian state and hand over its holy sites to a multinational committee, land swaps that would allow Israel to keep its major settlement blocs in the
West Bank, the construction of a tunnel connecting the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, and a demilitarized Palestinian state with an American-led international security force stationed on the Palestinian–Jordanian border. Both sides disagreed over how much land would be exchanged in the swaps, with Olmert demanding at least 6.3–6.8% of the West Bank and Abbas insisting a swap would not exceed 1.9%. In his memoirs, Olmert wrote that he agreed Israel would generously compensate the remaining refugees. Olmert later stated that U.S. President
George W. Bush offered to accept another 100,000 refugees as American citizens if a peace agreement was signed. U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice wrote in her memoirs that the Palestinians demanded they be allowed to negotiate additional "returns" to Israel following the peace deal, insisting that the
right of return was a matter of individual choice that would ultimately have to apply to every refugee. In his memoirs, Olmert claimed that he and Abbas were very close to an agreement, but Abbas' hesitation, Olmert's legal troubles, and the
2008-2009 Gaza War caused the talks to end. President Bush wrote in his memoirs that the talks broke down when Olmert announced that he would resign from office, and Abbas then broke off the talks and refused to finalize an agreement on the grounds that he did not want to sign a peace deal with a prime minister on his way out of office. During at least two meetings, Olmert made a secret promise to Abbas: Once a prisoner exchange deal for captive Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit was finalized with
Hamas, Israel would bolster Abbas' government by releasing
Fatah prisoners. After a
prisoner exchange deal was agreed upon in 2011 under Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, Olmert's successor, Palestinian officials demanded that Netanyahu live up to Olmert's promise and release Fatah prisoners. On 6 September 2007, Israel launched
Operation Orchard, an airstrike against a suspected nuclear reactor in
Syria, allegedly being built with North Korean and Iranian assistance. The strike was preceded by years of covert operations by Israeli special forces and the
Mossad. Details of the strike were censored in Israel, and the attack was not confirmed to have taken place until 2 October. Following the attack, Olmert's approval rating rose to 35%. President Bush wrote in his memoirs that Olmert had first asked him to bomb the facility, but ordered the attack after Bush refused and told him that he would prefer diplomatic action and sanctions. Following the strike, Bush claimed to have suggested to Olmert to hide the strike for a while and then make it public as a way to isolate the Syrian government, but Olmert asked for total secrecy, wanting to avoid anything that could force Syria to retaliate. In May 2008, Israel opened Turkish-brokered indirect peace talks with
Syria. Olmert stated that the resumption of peace talks with Syria was a national obligation that must be tried. However, Syria broke off the talks several months later in response to the
Gaza War.
Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Israel occurred frequently throughout the spring and summer of 2008, until a ceasefire was agreed between Hamas and Israel in June. Rocket attacks increased sharply in November after an Israeli raid on a Hamas-built smuggling tunnel. The ceasefire expired in December 2008 and negotiations stalled between the two parties to renew the ceasefire. On 24 December, the
Negev was hit by more than 60 mortar shells and
Katyusha and
Qassam rockets, and the IDF was given a green light to operate. Hamas claimed to have fired a total of 87 rockets and mortar rounds that day at Israel, code-naming the firing "Operation Oil Stain". On 25 December 2008, Olmert delivered a "last minute" warning to Gaza in direct appeal to Gaza's people via the Arabic language satellite channel
al-Arabiya, to pressure their leaders to stop the rocket barrages. "I am telling them now, it may be the last minute, I'm telling them stop it. We are stronger", he said. The attacks did not stop and Israel launched its military operation, codenamed
Operation Cast Lead, on the morning of 27 December, when more than 50
fighter jets and
attack helicopters began to bomb strategic targets. Air and naval strikes continued for days, when on 3 January 2009 the IDF began a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. The fighting lasted 22 days until a ceasefire came into effect. Israel subsequently withdrew from Gaza. On 1 February 2009, Olmert stated: The
UN Security Council passed a resolution on 8 January 2009 calling for an immediate ceasefire to the hostilities in the Gaza Strip. It passed 14–0–1, with one abstention from the United States. Olmert told reporters, "[U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice] was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favor. In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the Secretary of State wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favor. I said 'get me
President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in
Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the Secretary of State and told her not to vote in favor." When asked about the comments, a
White House spokesman said that Olmert's version of events was "inaccurate". The war ended on 18 January 2009. A day before, Israeli officials announced a
unilateral ceasefire, without an agreement with Hamas. In a press conference, Olmert declared the ceasefire effective that night, at 00:00 GMT. ==Resignation==