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| By Israel Insider staff November 29, 2007 |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that if Israel doesn't go along with the dictates of a two-state solution, it will be done for.
"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights [assuming that the Palestinians in the territories will petition peacefully to be citizens of Israel, taking on the obligations of Israeli citizenship], then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, following the Annapolis conference.
Olmert fretted that the real danger potential erosion of support by American Jews. "The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us," Olmert said, "because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents."
Olmert's children have already left Israel, and his wife Aliza is member of far-left protest organizations.
Olmert insisted that he has been saying these things for four yours, not just to escape his legal trouble. He faces a variety of allegations for corruption. Today the Israeli police will be announce whether they will recommend that criminal charges be filed against for interference in the process of the sale of Bank Leumi to help his billionaire cronies.
"Since then, I have systematically repeated those positions," he said, adding that people "will say I'm having problems and that's why I'm trying to do [a peace process], but the facts must be dealt with justly."
Olmert said the Annapolis conference "met more than we could have defined as the Israeli expectations, but that will not absolve us of the difficulties there will be in the negotiations, which will be difficult, complex, and will require a very great deal of patience and sophistication."
According to Olmert, "we now have a partner," in West Bank chieftain Mahmoud Abbas. "He is a weak partner, who is not capable, and, as Tony Blair says, has yet to formulate the tools and may not manage to do so. But it is my job to do everything so that he receives the tools, and to reach an understanding on the guidelines for an agreement. Annapolis is not a historic turning point, but it is a point that can be of assistance."
Olmert did not say whether he was planning to open a hardware store, but he has already agreed to increase the quantity and quality of military equipment and ammunition to be handed over to Abbas' Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah groups under it "to fight terrorism." Abbas has not tried one person on terrorism charges and routinely releases even members of the rival Hamas terror group. |
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