On Monday a new chapter will be written in Israel’s annals of politics and crime, as former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (Kadima) enters white-collar Ma’asiyahu prison near Ramla for 27 months for receiving a bribe and deception. Olmert was originally sentenced to six years, but the high court acquitted him on one major indictment. Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran wrote in his opinion that Olmert “is a public servant who embezzled money and betrayed the public’s trust, for which he must be punished.”

Olmert will be staying at Division 10 at Ma’asiyahu, set up for normative inmates who committed relatively light crimes. He will share a cell with two other inmates, dine at the division’s own mess hall and be able to use the gym. In one year he could appeal for a sentence reduction.

Danny Dankner and Meir Rabin, two of the defendants who were convicted in the Holy Land Hotel scandal, will also begin serving their sentences on Monday, after Supreme Court Justice Miriam Naor rejected their petition to receive another hearing in their case and to lighten their punishment. Naor ruled that neither defendant’s case revealed any exception that would justify an additional hearing.

Dankner was convicted in the Tel Aviv District Court, along with other defendants, and last month the Supreme court accepted his appeal partially, reducing his sentence from three to two years. Dnakner was convicted of giving bribes and money laundering.

Meir Rabin, who served as an aide to Shmuel Dachner, who ended up turning state’s evidence, was convicted of taking about $350,000 from Dankner, to help the latter re-zone lands owned by his family. He will serve five years, on receiving a bribe and money laundering.

Mahmoud Abbas has outdone himself for slander and disgust by charging that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “uses the propaganda tactics of Goebbels to convince the world that the Palestinian Authority is the reason for the freeze in the diplomatic process.”

The Palestinian Authority chairman lashed out at Netanyahu and compared him with the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels in comments he made on Palestinian Authority deletion. He said:

Netanyahu acts like Goebbels and lies, lies and lies…. There is no chance of any results of talks with this right-wing government.”

Abbas was responding to the Prime Minister’s speech this week at the annual Herzliya Conference, where he said:

I have been trying to speak with Mahmoud Abbas for six and a half years…. I froze construction for nearly a year, ten months. In the tenth month, he agreed to come. We met for three hours in Sharm el-Sheikh and three hours on Balfour Street in Jerusalem. He had one demand – another freeze….Six hours.

So I again call on President Abbas to return to negotiations without preconditions. But I also know he has very little reason to talk. Why should he talk? He can get by without talking. He can get by with an international community that blames Israel for not having talks. In other words, the Palestinians run from the table…from Prime Minister Barak…from Olmert… from, before that, from Sharon. And they ran away from me. When John Kerry proposed a framework for negotiations, the framework for a disagreement, for God’s sake, they ran away from that too….

Abbas did not try to counter the facts as told by Netanyahu.

Instead, he continued to disgrace himself for the foreign media who are finding it difficult to maintain their support for the “peace process.’

Goebbels?

It bears repeating that the Palestinian Authority talks about “two states” while using a map of the one state of “Palestine,” in place of all of Israel, in schools, television programs and official meetings.

It bears repeating that the Palestinian Authority says it is combating terror while it praises and honors terrorists whom it calls “martyrs.”

It bears repeating that the Abbas accuses Israel of “apartheid” and has repeatedly said that no Jew will be allowed to live under Palestinian Authority rule.

It bears repeating that Palestinian Authority has emasculated the Oslo Accords that call for negotiations with Israel on “final borders.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting with the usual warning that “Israel holds Hamas responsible for all firing from Gaza” but also jabbed the world for remaining silent.

The Prime Minister said:

I have not heard anyone in the international community condemn this firing; neither has the United Nations said a word. It will be interesting if this silence continues when we use our full strength to uphold our right to defend ourselves.

Let it be clear: The spreading hypocrisy in the world will not tie our hands and prevent us from protecting Israel’s citizens. Thus we have acted; thus we will act.

Turning to the BDS movement, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted, “We are in the midst of is establishing an offensive, first of all offensive, but also defensive, network in the face of attempts to boycott the State of Israel and harm the IDF’s right to defend the citizens of the country. As far as those pushing the boycotts are concerned, the settlements in Judea and Samaria are not the focus of the conflict, but our settling in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Be’er Sheva, Haifa and – of course – Jerusalem.

Netanyahu also had a message for the “peace process” promoters: While we call for a resumption of the diplomatic negotiations, the Palestinians are taking steps against us at the UN and at the international court in The Hague. They shun negotiations and at the same time are also pushing international sanctions and UN Security Council decisions against us because there are no negotiations. They ran from Barak, Sharon and Olmert, they ran from them all, and then they accuse us. Here as well their cynicism knows no bounds, and I regret that there are those who fall into this trap of organized hypocrisy.

Could he possibly be referring to President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry?

The Jerusalem District Court Tuesday morning sentenced former Prime Minister Ohed Olmert eight months in jail for the scandal in which he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from New York businessman Moshe Talansky.

He also was fined a paltry 150,00 shekels ($37,000). The jail sentence comes on top of a sentence of six years in prison for the Holyland apartments bribery scandal.

Olmert so far has succeeded in staying out of a jail cell, but his day is coming.

The former Prime Minister in 2012 was acquitted on charges in the Talansky affair, but the court overturned its ruling several months ago following testimony by Olmert’s former aide Shulie Zaken, who turned the tables on her former boss and got off the hook from a lengthy jail sentence for her participation on the Talansky affair.

Jerusalem District Court Judge Yaakov Zaban said while handing down the jail sentence Monday morning that Olmert crimes are a “black flag” on public service.

However, the ruling by the three-judge panel said that Olmert did not get a stiffer jail term in view of his public service,

It could be argued the other way around – that someone in public service should get the harshest sentence possible for abusing his position.

His defense attorneys whined, “The punishment handed down on Olmert only worsens the suffering he already has undergone.”

The lawyers complained that Olmert “resigned as Prime Minister because of investigations, removed himself from public life for several years, lost his lofty position and gave up privileges that he deserves as a former Prime Minister.”

And do they really think he should have remained in office, that he should have retained privileges, and that he should remain in public (dis)service?

Olmert is lucky there is no way to charge him and bring him to trial for his total mismanagement of Israeli policies in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brought to court Tuesday morning a letter from former “peace process” broker Tony Blair in an effort to stay out of jail for his conviction of pocketing approximately $150,000 from Morris Talansky of New York.

The prosecution asked the court to jail Olmert for more up to 18 months. The court will announce sentencing in three weeks.

Blair wrote that Olmert has dedicated his life to the public and to bring peace, for which he should be “admired.”

There are plenty of people who would like to see Olmert in jail for his “peace” efforts, but that is a different case that will be tried by the Divine Court.

Olmert played on the heart-strings of the court Tuesday, whining that if is thrown into jail, what could he say to his grandchild?

He also said he already has been punished because he cannot return to public service.

Olmert also brought documents from Mossad director Meir Dagan.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday, the 10th anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas is even worse than his predecessor.

“There is no difference between Arafat and Abu Mazen [Abbas],” he said. “Both of them hate Jews and believe in terror. The only difference is that Abu Mazen is more dangerous because he knows much better how to mask his true face.”

Lieberman put on the finishing touches Wednesday morning when he told Israel that Abbas also is worse than Hamas.

Abbas said in his speech on Tuesday commemorating Arafat that Israel is “contaminating” the Temple Mount. He even had the chutzpah to declare that Christians would never recognize eastern Jerusalem as part of the capital of Jerusalem.

International media have published so much propaganda against Israel that they have virtually erased from history the era of the Jordanian occupation, when Christians, as well as Jews, were barred from all holy sites under Jordanian rule.

Abbas’ outright incitement in his speech included praise for Muslim “heroes” at the Temple Mount who “have the right to defend themselves,” referring to Jews who “attack” by setting foot on the holy site, where they are barred from praying by the Muslim authority.

Abbas apparently fears that Jews might have prayers in mind, and that certainly is dangerous to Allah.

His incendiary speech fired up Lieberman, who is not a fan of Jews parading to the Temple Mount but who also is not too big on diplomatic charades.

He tore into Abbas Wednesday morning and said that he is an “illegitimate” leader of the Palestinian Authority because he has stayed in office for five years beyond the date for new elections.

Abbas “does not respect agreements and does not want peace but instead promotes terror.” He added, “His incitement is more dangerous than that of Hamas.”

Lieberman reiterated his previous suggestion that riot-plagued areas of Israel, such as the Triangle region between Netanya and Kfar Sava, and the Wadi Ara area around the Arab city of Umm el-Fahm to the north, could be part of a new Arab country.

“Once everything is made clear, the rioters certainly would be happy to live in a Palestinian state where they can enjoy freedom of speech, democracy, welfare assistance and unemployment insurance,” Lieberman said with enough bitter sarcasm that could turn honey into sour milk.

So is Abbas really worse than Arafat?

With all due apologies for throwing in a contradictory comparison with the Biblical Noach, the only difference between them is a generation.

The Torah cites Noach as a righteous mean, and Torah sages point out that he was a righteous man for his generation but certainly could not be compared with Abraham, ten generations later. However, each one was righteous in his generation.

Arafat terrorized Israel when ISIS did not exist, when even some Israelis on the center-right believed there could be some kind of compromise with the Palestinian Authority, and when the world had not yet realized that it was on the eve of a radical Islamic revolution and an Iran that seeks nuclear weapons to threaten the world with an Islamic universe or nuclear destruction.

Arafat was a terrorist when terrorism was appreciated by the world so long as it only killed Jews in Israel. He got away with wearing a pistol on his hip while talking about peace. He managed to turn the Nobel Peace prize into a mockery of truth.

Arafat set the stage for Abbas to put on a suit and tie, travel around the world to build up support for a “peace plan” that was a con game to set up Israel for destruction as a Jewish state.

A judge has denied a request by convicted former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to fly overseas for a business meeting, according to a YNet report.

The judge also denied a similar request by former Jerusalem city engineer Uri Shitreet.

Both were convicted for their roles in the Holyland corruption scandal. Olmert is set to serve a multi-year prison sentence for his role.