Tells 'Post' he has no idea how such a rumor was started, says no one asked him before publishing story.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANamiram olmert 88(photo credit: )
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's older brother, Prof. Amram Olmert, denied rumors in the Hebrew press on Monday that he had canceled his membership in his brother's Kadima Party.
The rumors spread quickly through the Knesset cafeteria after a Kadima activist who returned to the Likud started rattling off names of people who did the same. Likud MKs reacted gleefully to the reports, but a Kadima spokesman put an end to them shortly thereafter by issuing a statement from Amram Olmert.
"The reports are lies and there is no bit of truth to them," Olmert said. "No one asked me for a reaction before publishing their reports. I have not left Kadima, nor do I have any intention of leaving Kadima."
Amram Olmert later told The Jerusalem Post that he did not know who started the rumors. He lashed out at the Hebrew press for publishing the story.
"It's unbelievable how many people can write or broadcast a headline without asking," Olmert said. "I am a member of Kadima but I am a professor in China and I am not involved politically. I am sorry about things that are happening to my brother, but I keep such things to myself."
Amram Olmert's son, Yair Olmert, and Yair's wife and daughter did in fact leave Kadima in September, but he said it had nothing to do with the state of the party.
"I just made a decision to not be involved politically," Yair Olmert said. "I joined Kadima to help my uncle but I ended that chapter in my life. There is criticism of the party and some of it is not baseless but that had nothing to do with my decision."
A Kadima spokesman said the two reporters that broke the story would find themselves in court.
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