Olmert: Israel should pull out of West Bank

"The time has come to say these things" Olmert


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/world/middleeast/30olmert.html?_r=1
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JERUSALEM  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on 
Monday that Israel must withdraw from nearly all the West Bank as well as 
East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians and that any 
occupied land it held onto would have to be exchanged for the same 
quantity of Israeli territory.

He also dismissed as megalomania any thought that Israel would or 
should attack Iran on its own to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, 
saying the international community and not Israel alone was charged with 
handling the issue.


In an unusually frank and soul-searching interview granted after he 
resigned to fight corruption charges  he remains interim prime minister 
until a new government is sworn in  Mr. Olmert discarded longstanding 
Israeli defense doctrine and called for radical new thinking in words 
that are sure to stir controversy as his expected successor, Foreign 
Minister Tzipi Livni, tries to build a coalition.

What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader 
before me, Mr. Olmert told Yediot Aharonot newspaper in the interview to 
mark the Jewish new year that runs from Monday night till Wednesday 
night. The time has come to say these things.

He said traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from 
past experiences and seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 
Independence War.

With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories 
and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop, he said. 
All these things are worthless.

He added, Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on 
another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for 
the State of Israels basic security?

Over the last year, Mr. Olmert has publicly castigated himself for his 
earlier right-wing views and he did so again in this interview. On 
Jerusalem, for example, he said, I am the first who wanted to enforce 
Israeli sovereignty on the entire city. I admit it. I am not trying to 
justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of 
these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth.

He said that maintaining sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem, 
Israels official policy, would involve bringing 270,000 Palestinians 
inside Israels security barrier. It would mean an ongoing risk of 
terrorist attacks against civilians like those carried out earlier this 
year by Jerusalem Palestinian residents with a bulldozer and earth mover.

A decision has to be made, he said. This decision is difficult, 
terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our 
innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish 
people for 2,000 years.

The governments public stand on Jerusalem until now has been to assert 
that the status of the city was not under discussion. But Mr. Olmert made 
clear that the eastern, predominantly Arab, sector had to be yielded 
with special solutions for the holy sites.

On peace with the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert said in the interview: We 
face the need to decide but are not willing to tell ourselves, yes, this 
is what we have to do. We have to reach an agreement with the 
Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw 
from almost all the territories, if not all the territories. 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.

Elsewhere in the interview, when discussing a land swap with the 
Palestinians, he said the exchange would have to be more or less one to 
one.

Mr. Olmert also addressed the question of Syria, saying that Israel had 
to be prepared to give up the Golan Heights but that in turn Damascus 
knew it had to change the nature of its relationship with Iran and its 
support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia.

On Iran, Mr. Olmert said Israel would act within the international 
system, adding, Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is 
the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost 
a sense of proportion about itself.

Reaction from the Israeli right was swift. Avigdor Lieberman, who heads 
the Yisrael Beiteinu party, said on the radio that Mr. Olmert was 
endangering the existence of the State of Israel irresponsibly.

He added that those who thought Israels problem was a lack of defined 
borders  as Mr. Olmert stated in the interview  are ignoramuses who 
dont understand anything and they invite war.

As they reacted to Mr. Olmerts remarks, Palestinian negotiators said it 
was satisfying to hear Mr. Olmerts words but they said the words did not 
match what he had offered them so far. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior 
Palestinian official, told Palestinian Radio that it would have been 
better if Mr. Olmert had taken this position while in office rather than 
while leaving it and that Mr. Olmert had not yet presented a detailed 
plan for a border between Israel and a Palestinian state.

In theory, Mr. Olmert will continue peace negotiations while awaiting the 
new government. But most analysts believe that, having been forced to 
resign his post, he will not be able to close a deal.
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date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:12:26 GMT author: basho007