Short answer: Yes, in the sense that matters most. Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister from 2006 to 2009, is a lifelong Israeli political figure whose own family history is bound up with the state's founding, and he backs Israel's existence and security as a Jewish, democratic state. He is also, as of August 2026, the country's highest-profile former leader publicly accusing the current Israeli government of war crimes in Gaza and what he calls near-ethnic-cleansing conduct in the West Bank. He supports Israel as a state. He does not support the specific wartime and settlement policies of the Netanyahu government.
What Ehud Olmert has actually said and done
Olmert served as Prime Minister of Israel from January 4, 2006 to March 31, 2009, the country's highest office, capping decades in Israeli politics that began with his father's service in the Knesset for the Herut party, according to his Wikipedia biography.
In 2016 and 2017, Olmert served roughly 16 months in an Israeli prison, starting February 15, 2016 and paroled in July 2017, after a corruption conviction in the Holyland bribery affair. He became the first former Israeli prime minister to be imprisoned, per the same Wikipedia record.
On May 14, 2025, Olmert called Israel's blockade on aid to Gaza "totally intolerable, unacceptable, unbearable and unforgivable," as reported by the Times of Israel.
On May 21, 2025, in a BBC interview covered by the Times of Israel and separately by NPR, Olmert said Israel's conduct in Gaza was "very close to a war crime" and called it "a war without a purpose."
On February 9, 2026, speaking to Euronews from Tel Aviv, Olmert said Israeli policy in the West Bank "comes close to an attempt to make ethnic cleansing," placing responsibility on settlers and the government backing them, a claim he repeated in his own words months later in Haaretz.
In late March 2026, according to Haaretz, Olmert wrote a letter urging the International Criminal Court to take enforcement action against West Bank settler violence he called "Jewish terrorism." The letter, also reported by The Guardian, was co-signed by a former IDF chief of staff and defense minister, five former Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs, and four former police commissioners.
On June 18, 2026, in a Haaretz opinion piece, Olmert wrote that Israel is conducting "a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in the West Bank" and argued the fight against Jewish settler terrorism must be waged with greater determination.
Who Ehud Olmert is to Israel
Olmert's relationship to Israel is that of a former head of state, not an outside observer. He is Jewish, born in Mandatory Palestine in Binyamina in 1945 to parents who fled persecution in Ukraine and Russia by way of Harbin, and his father served in the Knesset. Olmert served in the Israel Defense Forces, was mayor of Jerusalem, and rose through Israeli politics to become prime minister.
In 2007 and 2008, he made one of the most far-reaching Israeli peace offers ever extended to the Palestinian Authority, and he has kept advocating a two-state solution since leaving office, including a joint outline for a peace agreement co-developed with former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa. He has said a two-state solution is "the only possible guarantee for the future existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state and as a democratic and liberal state," a position rooted in preserving Israel, not undermining it, even though it runs counter to current Israeli government policy. Since the Gaza war (which began in October 2023) and continuing through the ceasefire era, Olmert has become one of Israel's most prominent domestic critics of how the war and West Bank settler violence have been conducted, using terms like "war crime" and "ethnic cleansing" to describe specific government policies and settler violence. He has called on world leaders to boycott the Netanyahu government specifically, not Israel as a country, over judicial overhaul and settlement policy, and he joined former Israeli security chiefs in asking the ICC to act against settler violence. None of this is a rejection of Israel's right to exist or its security needs. Olmert has consistently framed his criticism as necessary to protect Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic state, and he has separately criticized Hamas.
The bottom line
Ehud Olmert supports Israel as a state and as the Jewish homeland: he led it, calls a two-state resolution necessary for Israel's own survival, and remains embedded in Israeli public life. What he does not support is the current Israeli government's conduct of the Gaza war or its West Bank settlement policy, which he has repeatedly and publicly called war crimes and ethnic cleansing. He is a pro-Israel critic of specific government policy, not an anti-Israel figure.
Wearing your support, plainly
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
