Israel will have to pull out of annexed lands, says Olmert

MIDDLE EAST: THE ISRAELI prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday his country would have to withdraw from "almost all" the land it captured in the 1967 war and divide Jerusalem in order to agree long-awaited peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.

His comments came in a newspaper interview ahead of the Jewish new year, but days after his resignation. He remains in his post as a caretaker prime minister, but is thought unlikely to be able to follow through with any of his proposals.

In the interview with Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer, two senior political columnists for Yedioth Ahronoth, Mr Olmert talked about peace with the Palestinians and the Syrians, as well as continuing to maintain his innocence over a series of high-profile corruption investigations, which forced him to step down. "We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that, in practice, we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories," Mr Olmert said. "We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace."

Israel wants to keep some of the settlement blocs in the West Bank, but in return for any occupied land it keeps, the Palestinians want a land swap for territory of equal size and quality within Israel.

"For the territories we leave in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the state of Israel at a ratio that is more or less 1:1," said Mr Olmert, adding that an Israeli withdrawal would have to include parts of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war.

But the prospect of dividing the city remains hugely contentious within Israel, although few believe a peace deal could work without a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

On Syria, Mr Olmert said his government began secret talks in February 2007. He said he believed Israel would have to give up the Golan Heights in return for Damascus ending its close relationship with Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. He admitted that such comments by an Israeli leader were rare. He also seemed to admit that his thinking in the past had been mistaken, particularly on his previous belief that Jerusalem should remain wholly inside Israel.

"I am not trying to justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth." He has taken a similar tone in several speeches since resigning, although he went further in this interview than before.

- (Guardian service)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times