'Israel must internalize divided J'lem'
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Herb Keinon and David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 1, 2008
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Israel needs to internalize that even its supportive friends on the
international stage conceive of the country's future on the basis of the 1967
borders and with Jerusalem divided, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared to
The Jerusalem Post.
At the same time, he made clear that he did not envisage a permanent accord
along the '67 lines, describing Ma'aleh Adumim as an "indivisible" part of
Jerusalem and Israel.
In an interview at the start of a year that he hopes will yield a permanent
Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, the prime minister said many rival Israeli
political parties remain "detached from the reality" that requires Israel to
compromise "on parts of Eretz Yisrael" in order to maintain its Jewish,
democratic nature.
If Israel "will have to deal with a reality of one state for two peoples," he
said, this "could bring about the end of the existence of Israel as a Jewish
state. That is a danger one cannot deny; it exists, and is even realistic."
Indeed, his primary responsibility as prime minister, Olmert said, lay in
ensuring a separation from the Palestinians.
"What will be if we don't want to separate?" he asked rhetorically. "Will we
live eternally in a confused reality where 50 percent of the population or more
are residents but not equal citizens who have the right to vote like us? My job
as prime minister, more than anything else, is to ensure that doesn't happen."
The reality in which Israel was seeking an accommodation, he elaborated,
includes a situation in which even "the world that is friendly to Israel...
that really supports Israel, when it speaks of the future, it speaks of Israel
in terms of the '67 borders. It speaks of the division of Jerusalem."
What was extraordinary about US President George W. Bush, in this context,
Olmert said, was that Bush, since a landmark letter he wrote to then-prime
minister Ariel Sharon in 2004, has made plain that he envisages Israel
maintaining at least some territory in Judea and Samaria. Bush "has already
said '67 plus," said Olmert, "and that's an amazing achievement for Israel."
Thus, Olmert asserted, while the road map obligated Israel to stop all building
in the settlements, including for natural growth, the Bush letter "renders
flexible to a degree the significance of what is written in the road map."
In comments likely to further exacerbate Palestinian protest at ongoing
settlement expansion, Olmert said he considered Ma'aleh Adumim to be "an
indivisible part of Jerusalem and the State of Israel. I don't think when
people are talking about settlements they are talking about Ma'aleh Adumim."
At the same time, the prime minister expressed considerable empathy for
Palestinian concerns over settlement growth. If the only construction work
undertaken since the road map was accepted had been at Ma'aleh Adumim and Har
Homa, he said, "then I imagine the Palestinians, though they might not have
been happy about it, would not have responded in the way that they respond when
every year, all the settlements - in all the territories - continue to grow.
There is a certain contradiction in this between what we're actually seeing and
what we ourselves promised. We always complain about the [breached] promises of
the other side. Obligations are not only to be demanded of others, but they
must also be honored by ourselves."
While all the final-status issues were now on the table as part of the
Annapolis process, Olmert stressed that he would never accept a Palestinian
"right of return" to Israel.
He said he was convinced, too, that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas "has made the choice in his heart" between clinging to the "myth of the
'right of return'" and the opportunity to establish a Palestinian state where
all Palestinians, refugees included, would live.
"My impression is that he wants peace with Israel, and accepts Israel as Israel
defines itself," Olmert said. "If you ask him to say that he sees Israel as a
Jewish state, he will not say that. But if you ask me whether in his soul he
accepts Israel, as Israel defines itself, I think he does. That is not
insignificant. It is perhaps not enough, but it is not insignificant."
Asked whether next week's first Bush presidential visit was designed for Bush
to become the godfather of the State of Palestine, Olmert said, "I don't think
he would define a visit like this in those terms... He's coming as an
expression of his friendship. Also, he's coming to give expression to his
support for the diplomatic process."
Bush was not pressuring Israel in any way, Olmert said. "He's not doing a
single thing that I don't agree to," he said. "He doesn't support anything that
I oppose." Rather, Olmert said, both he and the president hoped that the
Annapolis timetable, for an accord in the course of 2008, could be met.
Indeed, said the prime minister, there was currently an almost divinely
ordained constellation of key personalities on the international stage
favorably disposed to Israel, creating comfortable conditions for negotiations
that might never be replicated.
"It's a coincidence that is almost 'the hand of God,'" Olmert said, "that Bush
is president of the United States, that Nicolas Sarkozy is the president of
France, that Angela Merkel is the chancellor of Germany, that Gordon Brown is
the prime minister of England and that the special envoy to the Middle East is
Tony Blair."
The imperative, he said, was to make every effort for progress while this array
of supportive characters remained in place.
"What possible combination," he asked, "could be more comfortable for the State
of Israel?"
Olmert said he believes "with all my heart" that kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad
Schalit is alive and that he was "making every effort" to determine the
situation of captive reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. He said he
favored re-examining the criteria for Palestinian prisoner releases because "it
may be that there is room for more precise definitions of what constitutes
'blood on hands.'"
While Olmert said Egypt needed to do more to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza,
he had high praise for President Hosni Mubarak.
"When I even think of how things would be if we were dealing with people other
than Mubarak, well, I pray every day for his well-being and good health," he
said.
Expansive on many issues, Olmert was insistently understated on the existential
threat posed by Iran. Even in the wake of the recent US National Intelligence
Estimate, he said, "The bottom line is that President Bush hasn't changed his
opinion regarding the danger posed by Iran. And I haven't changed my impression
regarding President Bush's commitment to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear
weapons."
But, he added: "Israel always acted and prepared for the possibility that it
would need to defend its existence on its own. That's always been the case and
that is the case today, wherever a threat to our existence can arise. Those who
need to know do know that we have the tools to defend ourselves."
The full interview with the prime minister will appear in Friday's Jerusalem
Post.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com
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