Darrelyn Gunzburg
April 2006
Ehud Olmert was born in Nahalat Jabotinsky, near Binyamina, in the British Mandate of Palestine (today’s State of Israel) on 30th September, 1945.[i] He was elected as Israel’s Prime Minster on 28thMarch, 2006
As far as I can ascertain, we do not yet have a birth time for Olmert so, working with a noon chart, we can see he has a tightly-conjunct natal Mercury-Neptune-Sun-Jupiter stellium in Libra. This suggests a father figure who was either highly religious, idealistic or artistic, or a dreamer, an alcoholic or weakened in some way, (Sun-Neptune), who seeks or is a spiritual teacher (Jupiter-Neptune), who may be confused in his thinking or be an inspired, intuitive communicator (Mercury-Neptune) and is either able to see both sides of a situation and thus to negotiate with diplomacy or else unable to make clear decisions and so falls into confusion (Sun in Libra). Since this stellium is also at the Bendings (square the nodal axis), these aspects are further highlighted and stressed in Olmert’s chart.
Olmert and a Royal Star
When we consider the fixed stars that sit underneath this stellium, we see that the Sun and Mercury are both connected with Fomalhaut in his developing years. To the Persians, Fomalhaut was the bitter-sweet madness of the poetic mind challenged to remain in the physical world, the child stolen by the fairies who must reject the captivating non-life and return to the mortal world of life and death, painfully remembering the life of sublime perfection it has to leave. Fomalhaut offers a person success and as with any of the Royal Stars, there is a nemesis. To have Fomalhaut connected with your chart indicates that recognition will be forthcoming but your motives must be clear and honest. As long as you can avoid manipulating events for your own personal glorification, then success is yours. If you allow your own acclaim to become the main driving force, then all your dreams turn to dust.[ii]
In working with parans Starlight does not need a birth time to examine the fixed stars in a chart. The resulting paran printout produced by Starlight will divide a life into three sections: stars of one’s youth, stars of one’s prime and stars of one’s latter years. If life can extend anywhere from between 70-90 years, then we could say that the first third of life may contain all that occurs up to the first Saturn return, the second third up to the second Saturn return and the final third the years thereafter. So for Olmert, the fact that Fomalhaut is connected with his Sun and his Mercury in youth adds recognition and acclaim to his pathway but initially projected onto his father figure.
Starlight says of Olmert’s Fomalhaut that it is rising as it forms a paran to his natal Sun
The artist, the idealist, the charismatic one who is vulnerable to hubris
Thus Olmert would have seen his father as someone with tremendous magnetism who shaped and focused his early ideals (Fomalhaut) and honed his own identity (the Sun).
When Olmert was born, the Second World War had just ended. Olmert’s father, Mordechai Olmert, was an ultranationalist politician and a member of the Revisionist movement whose goals were to put pressure on Great Britain for Jewish statehood. Following in his father’s politically active footsteps, Olmert joined Betar, a secular Jewish and Zionist youth movement.
Starlight says of Olmert’s Fomalhaut rising with his Mercury
To have an idealistic vision, or to deceive
As with all Israeli youth, Olmert served time in the Israeli Defense Force as combat infantry unit officer. However, we see an early expression of Fomalhaut in paran with his Mercury when he took on a position of military correspondent for the IDF journal “Bamachane”. Taking this ability with words, communication and idealistic vision further, Olmert went on to become a lawyer by profession, holding B.A. and LL.B. degrees in Psychology, Philosophy and Law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. By the time he was twenty-eight he had won a seat in the Knesset (the Israelii parliament) and was offering further expression for his lofty visions by serving on various political committees.
But parans also “mature”. Olmert does not lose the parans of his youth. He builds on them in the years of his prime, not only through life experience but through any other fixed stars connected with them. In Olmert’s case, the charismatic, idealistic Sun and Mercury of his youth are allowed to ripen by being connected with two other fixed stars. This is not always the case – there may have been no further fixed stars connected with his Sun and Mercury – but for Olmert it is so. Thus the Sun-Fomalhaut of this youth gains Alhena in his prime:
Alhena as the Sun is Rising
A leader with a mission, a person who is identified with a cause
Alhena, the Proudly Marching One, is the star in the left foot of Pollux. Brady, writing in Starlight, tells us that:
“to have Alhena in your chart is to have a cause to follow, a belief for which you will ‘march’. This marching may hurt you at times but the difficulties that it causes you will be considered small in return for the goals you are trying to achieve.”
Since the creation of Israel in 1948, the country has been governed either by Labour (left wing) or Likud (right-wing) parties. This current Kadima (centrist) victory is historic.[iii] particularly given that Olmert was essentially a “blue blood of the right”[iv] in upbringing. But within a few short years of being a close ally of Ariel Sharon he had moved his ideas to the middle.
For Olmert, these elections have taken the idealistic vision of his early years (Sun-Fomalhaut) and linked them with absolute certainty to Israel’s identity – that of aleader with a mission identified with a cause (Sun-Alhena) in the years of his prime.
Ankaa as Mercury is On Nadir
An inventor, engineer, or one who brings order and structure
Ankaa is The Bright One in the Boat which, according to Brady, carries a sense of transformation or transcendence. In Olmert’s case it is in the area of his Mercury, his thinking, his communication, his ability to broker deals and to sway people to his point of view that he can truly change or alter Israel’s circumstances, not through force and action, but via insights that transcend.
Again the idealistic vision of his early years in politics (Fomalhaut-Mercury) are being given an opportunity to provide a peaceful solution for Israel (Ankaa -Mercury) in the years of his prime.
In conclusion
The nemesis of Fomalhaut is that one could be being lost in the world of idealism and fanaticism. Yet Olmert has not done this.
As Nicola Assetta in Cafebabel.com (France) on 30th March 2006 wrote:
He has done it; Ehud Olmert cast aside his grey bureaucrat’s suit and became a statesman recognised by the people… His winning weapon has been pragmatism. A pragmatism that has lead him to difficult choices in a country whose politics have mainly been inspired by ideologies and dogmas.
As well, with a natal Mercury-Neptune-Sun-Jupiter stellium in Libra, Olmert has the gift of steadiness, seeing both sides of an argument and taking a middle course. He has already proved he is on this pathway. Olmert was once a lifetime advocate of keeping all the land Israel conquered in the 1967 Six-Day War and his idealist Fomalhaut-fed Sun and Mercury supported settlement in the occupied territory. However, in 2003, Olmert recognized that Arabs would eventually outnumber Jews and turn Israel into a bi-national state if they continued to maintain the combined territory (Israel, Gaza and the West Bank), that the only way forward in order to remain a Jewish state was to pull back.
The fate of the Middle East has been placed upon Olmert’s shoulders. He is now the leader with a mission, the person identified with a cause (Alhena-Sun) but it rests on his ability to as the engineer, or one who brings order and structure (Mercury with Ankaa) to communicate and implement his plans. The fixed stars connected with his natal chart all suggest this will happen.
[i] Sources: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; News reports (January 2006) and http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/people/BIOS/olmert.html – accessed 2nd April 2006.
[ii] Brady, Bernadette. (1999). Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars, Samuel Weiser Inc: York Beach, Maine.
Fixed Star by Starlight Software. © Barnswood Ltd and Bernadette Brady.
[iii] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4855154.stm – accessed 2nd April 2006.
[iv] http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opgor314682183mar31,0,1810806.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines – accessed 2nd April 2006.
