MILK COW GOES SOUR
"The United States is one of the best milking cows in the world. You come to the United States and you milk," said Ranan Gissin, an aide to former prime minister Ariel Sharon.
"It's not just the money. It's the political support. We're talking about 70 million people," Gissin said of evangelicals.
Olmert was long a familiar speaker on the US fundraising lunch and dinner circuit. Public records show that, for example, he attended a series of three meetings in churches organised by a group known as the Jerusalem Prayer Team, whose founder Mike Evans's stated mission is "to protect the Jewish people...until Israel is secure and the redeemer comes to Zion".
From 2002 to 2004, church fundraisers organised by the Jerusalem Prayer Team, including the one in Dallas, raised $239,300 for the New Jerusalem Foundation. NJF records say it spent its money on parks, charity meals and other programmes.
But Olmert's relationship with many Christians has soured.
"I think he's changed over the years and power can do that," said one pastor who attended Olmert's fundraisers in the past.
"I don't think it's the same Ehud Olmert that we knew."
Evangelicals did not oppose all talks, Gissin said, but were firmly against "giving away holy real estate like Jerusalem".
A group of Christian leaders, including George Morrison from Colorado, met Olmert in April: "When he was mayor, he found a friend in evangelical Christians and evangelical Christians found someone strong on Jerusalem," Morrison said. But now many Christians were "questioning if he is on the same page".
In a declaration he read to Olmert on behalf of the group, which also included Hagee and Evans, Morrison assured the prime minister that American evangelicals could mobilise to try to stop Bush or his successor pressing Israel into giving up land.
In January, Evans made clear his view of Annapolis: "I was completely outraged when I heard that Ehud Olmert, whom I have known for 26 years, stood next to President Bush and declared that he would work to fulfill the final status solution.
"This means the division of Jerusalem," he wrote on his Web site. "I will do everything in my power to resist that."
