Olmert: We Must Leave Most of West Bank
Israel will have to give up virtually all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem if it wants peace with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a farewell interview published Monday, saying Israel faced a stark choice and needed to make a decision soon.
Olmert also said Israel would have to leave the Golan Heights in order to obtain peace with Syria. The comments were the clearest sign to date of Olmert's willingness to meet the Palestinians' demands, but their significance was uncertain, since Olmert's days in office are numbered and peace negotiations will soon become the responsibility of a different Israeli leader. More than anything, the interview marked Olmert's transformation from a vocal hard-liner who for decades opposed any territorial concessions to the Palestinians to a leader whose views are virtually identical to those of the dovish politicians he once pilloried. "We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, one meaning that we will withdraw in practice from nearly all of the territories, if not from all of them," Olmert told Yediot Aharonot. Olmert said Israel would keep "a percentage" of the West Bank but would have to give Palestinians the same amount of Israeli territory in exchange, "because without this there will be no peace." He said Israel would have to leave parts of east Jerusalem, saying Israel couldn't hope to maintain its control of the more than 200,000 Palestinian residents there. He mentioned three recent attacks in which east Jerusalem residents have rammed Israelis with vehicles, killing three people and wounding dozens. He said anyone who wants to stop the attacks "must give up parts of Jerusalem." There would be "special arrangements" for the city's holy sites, he said, without offering details. As mayor of Jerusalem and a hard-line lawmaker, Olmert long opposed any compromise in the city and encouraged efforts to build Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to cement Israel's control. "I'm the first one who wanted to enforce Israeli sovereignty on the whole city. I admit this," he said. Olmert said that for decades he "was not prepared to look at reality in all of its depth." Olmert said time was "so short that it is terribly distressing." In its attempts to make peace with the Palestinians and Syria, he said the decision Israelis now had to make "was a decision that we have been refusing to look at open-eyed for 40 years." David Baker, a spokesman for Olmert, confirmed the content of the interview was accurate [Israeli Zionists can't believe it].
sounds like hes trying to score a few brownie points and scrape together some kind of legacy on the international scence,bullshit, hes a fukcing racsist, terroist war criminal who should be hung in public. The next one will be just as bad, how can you jusifty a lie? 6 million my arse?
If they wanted to leave the West Bank, I have to wonder why they have hundreds of settlements and (continuing to build them as he speaks), more than a hundred military installations, a heavily fortified Wall that is 25 feet high and 700 kilomters long, and absolute control over the water, which is channled to either Israel proper or the settlements.
These people couldn't tell the truth if their lives depended on it.
Mr. Olmert’s Belated Truths
Weaselmert is just trying to cover for his war-crimes.