Is Talansky set to air Olmert’s dirty laundry?

On the day Israelis should be celebrating their country's 60th birthday, the gossip in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - not for the first time - is about whether their troubled prime minister, Ehud Olmert [pictured], is about to be nailed for corruption. Investigators have been looking into whether he accepted money while he was the mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s from an American financier, Moshe 'Morris' Talansky.

Talansky's name is the subject of gagging order in Israel, where he is refered to only as "an American businessman". But his name was published by the New York Post this week and Israeli radio announcers have been telling listeners to go to the Post's website without explaining why.

Talansky, 75, a philanthropist and political donor to Rudy Giuliani and Bill Clinton among others, lives with his second wife Helene in the village of Woodsburgh, Long Island. But he also keeps an apartment in Jerusalem, and he's apparently holed up there now, waiting for the call to talk to prosecutors.

It is claimed Talansky repeatedly appears - sometimes under the nickname 'The Laundry Man' - in financial logs kept by Olmert's long-time aide, Shula Zaken, currently under house arrest. Talansky, an Orthodox Jew, is said to have implicated Olmert when he was questioned by police on a visit to Jerusalem to spend Passover with his children. He is now "set to sing" to prosecutors, according to the Post.

Olmert has vehemently denied any wrong-doing, as he has before when questioned about financial impropriety. But this time it could be serious.
Some political observers expect an indictment once today's anniversary celebrations are out of the way.