JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY, 10 March 2006 — Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expects to draw Israel’s permanent borders by 2010, and as part of that effort, will build a controversial settlement outside Jerusalem, he said yesterday.
Olmert’s statement came as Hamas presented Fatah yesterday with proposals in Gaza City for forming a Palestinian coalition government. Both parties are in the search for an elusive deal on sharing power. The suggestions — which stopped short of a draft document — were raised by the head of Hamas’ parliamentary bloc, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, in talks with his Fatah opposite number, Azzam Al-Ahmed, at Zahar’s Gaza City home.
Although talks were expected to continue, Ahmed emphasized that no agreement on forming a national coalition had yet been reached. “Dialogue should continue because we have begun to discuss the details of the political matters that divide us. So far, we have not reached an understanding,” Al-Ahmed told reporters.
Hamas spokesman Salah Al-Bardawil told the press that the talks, the second round in two weeks, focused on international issues and not domestic matters.
Meanwhile, a Hamas delegation will visit Saudi Arabia seeking political and economic support, Palestinian prime minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh said in comments published yesterday. “It is in your direction that we turn every day in prayer and, after God, it is to the Saudi people that we turn when other options have become difficult,” Haniyeh was quoted as saying in the Saudi newspaper Al-Madinah.
Haniyeh said a Hamas delegation would also ask Saudi Arabia to help formulate a positive Arab position toward the group during an Arab summit to be held in Khartoum later this month.
Earlier, Olmert, whose Kadima Party is the clear frontrunner ahead of March 28 elections, told The Jerusalem Post daily that within four years, he intended to “get to Israel’s permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population and preserve a large and stable Jewish majority in Israel.”
Olmert adviser Avi Dichter had disclosed that time frame earlier this week, but this was the first time Olmert had publicly stated it.
Olmert said Israel would act unilaterally to set its borders if Hamas didn’t renounce their violent campaign against Israel and accept the guidelines of an internationally backed peace plan within a “reasonable time.”
But Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat urged Olmert to return to the negotiating table. “Unilateralism and dictation will only add to the complexities and will not solve problems,” Erekat said.
Olmert also said Israel would build controversial housing on West Bank land between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, Israel’s largest settlement, as part of its border-setting. Palestinians object to the planned construction of 3,650 housing units because it would cut off Jerusalem from the West Bank.
Last year, Israel froze the plan under pressure from Washington, which sees it as an obstacle to peacemaking.
Also yesterday, Israel reopened the vital Karni cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel, after a two-week closure.
— Additional input from agencies
