Ehud Olmert (left) with PA President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (center). Photo: wiki commons.

Haaretz – Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spent the afternoon Tuesday, in his home in Motza near Jerusalem, receiving a stream of calls and flower bouquets congratulating him on his acquittals earlier that day. One of the more interesting of these congratulations was a phone call from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian leader, who has been avoiding meeting and talking with the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, congratulated Olmert in his acquittal and wished him the best of luck in the future.

When Olmert was prime minister, he held intensive negotiations with Abbas, starting with the Annapolis Peace Summit in November 2007. During 2008, after the Talansky and Rishon Tours affairs broke, Olmert presented Abbas with a proposal for a peace agreement covering all the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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