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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel must quit nearly all occupied land: Olmert |
| 2008-09-30 |
| Israel's interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel must give up virtually all the occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem, insisting in an interview published on Monday this was key to achieving peace with the Palestinians. Olmert, in a caretaker role since quitting on Sept. 21, said he was breaking new ground in calling for a broad pullback from the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians hope to establish a state, and in the annexed Golan Heights, which Syria wants back. "(I am saying) what no previous Israeli leader has ever said: we should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including in East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights," Olmert, who resigned over corruption allegations, told Yedioth Ahronoth. "We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace," he said. "Including in Jerusalem," he said in reference to the predominantly Arab eastern part of the Holy City which Israel occupied and annexed after the 1967 war and which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. The Israeli daily called it a "legacy interview", published on the eve of the Jewish new year, in which Olmert went further in making offers for peace than he ever did publicly when he was in active office, with greater power to see them carried out. The statement is expected to stir deep controversy. Israel officially considers Jerusalem its "eternal, undivided" capital, a view Olmert -- a former mayor of the city -- said he shared for many years. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Olmert is Israel's Carter. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-09-30 11:00 |
| #5 Hopelessly naive. Much like many American Democrats who have never studied, and in fact abhor studying history. The very old rationale they use is that history is the greatest enemy of socialism. The few that engage the study do so only in the effort to corrupt it and destroy its credibility. In turn, this is why Democrats are so arrogant and ignorant about things like foreign policy and economics. They convince themselves that all their ideas are new and untried, and they are filled with trust of the untrustworthy. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’” -- Senator Joe Biden, to Katie Couric |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-09-30 09:36 |
| #4 |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-09-30 09:33 |
| #3 Given the many corruption affairs Omerts is in, what are the chances he is is Saudi payroll? |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-09-30 09:16 |
| #2 Would someone take this guy out back and put one in his ear? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-09-30 08:29 |
| #1 Olmert doesn't get it. The so-called Palestinians don't want peace or even a state, they just want to eradicate the jews (from the earth). Olmert just needs to shrivel up and go away. |
| Posted by: Xenophon 2008-09-30 00:49 |