(Adds details, quotes) JERUSALEM, May 12 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday he considered Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, under police investigation for bribery, to be an "honest man". Bush said in an interview with Israel's Channel 10 in Washington that his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal "remained the same" despite the probe, which could unseat Olmert and derail U.S.-backed talks on Palestinian statehood. "I understand the legal issue goes on and I ... respect Israeli rule of law," Bush said in excerpts from the interview aired by the channel in advance of a full broadcast on Tuesday. "I have great relations with the prime minister, I find him to be a frank man, an honest man, an open man, a guy easy to talk to and somebody who understands the vision necessary for Israelis' security," the U.S. president said in his first comments on the Olmert investigation. "The vision of the peace process is the same," said Bush, due to visit Israel this week to mark the Jewish state's 60th birthday and to promote peacemaking with the Palestinians. Olmert admitted last week that he took cash from an American businessman at the centre of the police investigation, which could overshadow the visit by Israel's top ally, but he has denied any wrongdoing. Olmert said he would resign if indicted. Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas relaunched peace talks in November after a seven year hiatus, and Bush is pressing them for an agreement before he leaves office in January. However, the peace talks have been marred by disputes over Jewish settlement building and violence on Israel's border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and sceptics say Bush's time frame is too ambitious. Washington, Israel and the West have shunned Hamas Islamists, who seized control of the Gaza Strip last June and have opposed the peace drive, and are trying to shore up Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction holds sway in the West Bank. "I also believe over time that when confronted with life in Gaza, what that's like, or life in a place where you can raise your child in peace, most Palestinians will choose peace," Bush said. Bush reiterated that he viewed Iran, which is locked in a nuclear dispute with the West, as the "single biggest threat to peace in the Middle East" and said Tehran was funding Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. "It's hard because not everbody shares the same anxiety Israel and the United States does ..." he said. "I will try to push it as best I can." (Reporting by Rebecca Harrison and Ori Lewis; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
A Palestinian man looks in a mirror as he tries on a Kufiah at Samed store, which sells Palestinian products, in Yarmouk camp, near Damascus May 12, 2008. On Thursday, Palestinians ...
