I wonder what is running through Olmert’s mind right now.

I mean, seriously, the guy is not stupid.

While he hasn’t managed to engineer the under the table deals on the scale of Ariel Sharon or Shimon Peres, he has managed to put together and apparently get away with some pretty crafty transactions. Olmert is a shrewd politician and if there is anything he knows, it is back-room deals and how to read what’s going on in front of and behind him.

Even a neophyte like Tzipi Livni caught on that something was wrong (though apparently she didn’t understand why). Olmert obviously saw what happened in Annapolis.

The Arabs demanded that the Jews enter from a different entrance.

The Saudis sat there without translators, so they couldn’t understand a word that Olmert said.

Nearly all the Arabs refused to shake his hand.

Even Condoleezza Rice made an inane, off-color remark to Tzipi Livni that showed the true thoughts of the State Department (and herself) when it comes down to it.

Whatever pressures or expediencies are driving Olmert, there is no way he could have left Annapolis with any good feeling in his stomach. He must have felt the pure hatred extended at him and at Israel. He must have seen the coalition of annihilation ganging up before his very eyes.

No matter what spin he now puts on Bush’s words (including or despite what was said to him behind the scenes), he saw and heard what was said. He saw and heard what Abbas and the Others all said and say.

The Arabs made their goal very clear. There is no peace in the future. They seek the destruction of Israel as a Jewish State.

And the threats continued today with Saudi Arabia and Egypt inviting Hamas and Fatah to parlay so they can get their joint act together. Not to mention the statement of the senior PA official that said that Fatah and Hamas will fight Israel together if Israel tries to enter Gaza en mass.

So besides political survival, what else is going on in his mind.

What did Olmert feel? Was he embarrassed? Did he feel like a Galus Jew?

I can’t believe he walked away unaffected.

Even as he went home to his wife who supports the other side in this war, he must have felt some twinge in his conscience that this was about everything but peace.

Wouldn’t he?