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A Kadima election campaign billboard, Wednesday. (AP)
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Acting PM Ehud Olmert speaks during a Kadima party meeting at the Knesset, Wednesday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 23, 2006 |
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| A Kadima poster showing ailing PM Ariel Sharon is seen at the Kadima election headquarters in Jerusalem, Wednesday. (AP) |
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Israeli Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima Party slid slightly in opinion polls published Thursday, five days ahead of a general election, but still held a commanding lead over other parties.
Kadima would get 36 of 120 parliamentary seats, down three seats, according to a Dahaf poll published in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. The left-center Labor Party gained two seats, rising to 21, and the hawkish Likud Party dropped one seat to 14. The survey questioned 1,062 people on Wednesday and has an error margin of 3 percentage points.
In a poll published in the Maariv daily, Kadima would get 37 seats, down two from last week's survey. Labor would garner 21 seats, up one, and Likud would get 14, one less than in the previous poll. The survey of 500 people has an error margin of two seats, Maariv reported.
Apparently convinced he will be the next prime minister, Olmert told Yediot in an interview published Thursday that parties that refuse to accept his plan of withdrawing from parts of Judea and Samaria would not be able to join his coalition government.
"I presented a political plan at the center of which is determining Israel's final borders during my term in office. In the framework of the plan, settlements in Judea and Samaria will be consolidated into settlement blocs and the barrier, which will be Israel's future border," Olmert said in the interview.
Israel wants to hold onto large Judean and Samarian settlement blocs under a final peace deal with the Palestinians. Settlements it wants to hold onto are being placed on the Israeli side of a security barrier Israel began building three years ago.
Israel has said the barrier is meant to prevent Palestinian terrorists from attacking Israeli cities, but the structure of trenches, razor wire and concrete walls is rapidly becoming a defacto border between Israel and the West Bank.
"I want to emphasize so that no one doubts it: I intend to implement this plan. Anyone who is not interested in seeing this plan implemented - will not be in my coalition. I do not intend to compromise on the details of the plan. This is the plan and there is no other," Olmert said.
Olmert's statements indicated that the Labor Party, headed by populist ex-union leader Amir Peretz, would be a natural partner in a Kadima-led coalition. Likud would not likely join such a government as its leader, hawkish former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has already said he is opposed to further withdrawals in Judea and Samaria.
The dovish Meretz Party could also join a government that plans to withdraw from the West Bank.
Kadima was founded by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon weeks before he suffered a massive stroke on Jan. 4 that left him comatose. Olmert stepped into Sharon's position, and is being viewed as his successor.
Sharon's summer withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements ripped apart the Likud Party he helped establish in the 1970s, but enjoyed broad public support among Israelis. Olmert's plan is meant to be a continuation of that pullout, and separate between Israel and the Palestinians.
Olmert told Channel 10 TV in an interview on Wednesday that he would wait some time if he is elected before implementing the withdrawal plan to see if Hamas - which swept a January Palestinian parliamentary election - will moderate its militant views and negotiate with Israel.
But if Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, accept past Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements and renounce violence, Israel will move to unilaterally draw its borders, Olmert said.
"We waited a reasonable time. If we see there is no reasonable chance (for a resumption of talks) we will take our fate in our own hands," Olmert said.
"We have to solve the problem ourselves, not to become a hostage to the Palestinians to decide when things will happen and what will happen," he said.
Asked for his response if Hamas changes its policy and recognizes Israel, Olmert said that if the representatives of the Palestinian people fulfill all of their obligations and stop terrorism, "then we will negotiate with the representatives of the Palestinian Authority."
Olmert said he would prefer negotiations to unilateral actions. "We are prepared to fix borders that are different from the ones we have today. so there is plenty to talk about," he said, while rejecting the key Palestinian demand to withdraw from all of Judea and Samaria.
New poll shows most Israelis ready to make concessions on Jerusalem
A majority of Israelis favor giving up areas of Jerusalem as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians, reflecting a major change in Israel's attitude toward the city ahead of parliamentary elections, according to a new poll.
The status of Jerusalem is an emotive issue for both Israelis and Palestinians and has been a major stumbling bloc in peace talks. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, including the Old City with its holy sites, as the capital of a future state. Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and says it intends to keep the city unified under Israeli control.
In previous elections, hardline candidates have attacked their dovish rivals by accusing them of planning to divide Jerusalem. However, after five years of fighting with the Palestinians, Israeli support for withdrawing from territory captured in the 1967 Mideast War has grown.
Olmert has even proposed leaving some outlying Arab areas of east Jerusalem by 2010.
In a report issued Tuesday, the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies said Wednesday that 63 percent of Israelis polled are willing to make concessions in Jerusalem within the framework of a peace agreement. However, 54 percent of the Israelis willing to make concessions oppose any compromise over the Old City.
Only 36 percent of Israelis polled are not willing to give up any parts of the city.
The poll of 500 Israeli Jews had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Secular and moderate Jews were more willing to make concessions in Jerusalem than those who consider themselves ultra-Orthodox, according to the study.
Ora Ahimeir, the institute's director, said the findings represented a significant change in Israeli public opinion regarding Jerusalem. During the last elections in 2003, there was an almost complete consensus among Israeli Jews about maintaining the unity of Jerusalem within its current borders and total opposition to any kind of compromise, she said.
Though many parties in this election say they support concessions on Jerusalem, no major party advocates giving the Palestinians control over the Old City, with sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
The study, however, found that most Israelis were pessimistic about reaching a peace deal, with 75 percent of respondents saying they do not believe an agreement is achievable.
AP contributed to this report.
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