Israel to draw West Bank borders by 2010
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-10 09:06

Israel will draw its final borders by 2010, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published Thursday, for the first time setting a deadline for what is expected to be a unilateral large-scale West Bank pullback.

In this photo made available by the Government Press Office, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks at his house in Jerusalem Tuesday, March 7, 2006. 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 in interviews published Thursday March 9, 2006. [AP]

Olmert, whose Kadima Party is the front-runner in March 28 elections, has been increasingly forthcoming about his agenda in recent days to stop a gradual slide in the polls.

Olmert's agenda also includes a plan for an expanded Jerusalem that alarms Palestinians, connecting the West Bank's largest settlement to the disputed city with new Jewish housing 锟斤拷 a plan the U.S. opposes.

Opinion polls published Thursday, less than three weeks before the vote, showed Kadima with a wide lead over its two main rivals, the moderate Labor and hawkish Likud. But since Kadima's founder, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, suffered a massive stroke Jan. 4, its numbers have been slowly dropping.

Polls show Kadima winning about 38 seats of the 120 in the parliament, while Labor would win about 19 and Likud 17.

Trying to shore up the center 锟斤拷 a new concept in traditionally polarized Israeli politics 锟斤拷 Olmert has been outlining a policy that would appeal to dovish Israelis who believe in evacuating much of the West Bank, as well as hawks who favor retaining the Jewish settlements there.

Olmert told The Jerusalem Post daily that within four years, he intends 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 said his broad guidelines for Israel's borders included incorporating its three major settlement blocs 锟斤拷 Maaleh Adumim and Gush Etzion outside Jerusalem, and Ariel, deep inside the West Bank. Residents of isolated settlements could be moved into the major blocs, he told the Haaretz daily. Most of the 253,000 Jewish settlers already live in the main blocs.

Jerusalem and its environs would also fall within the permanent borders, as would the West Bank's Jordan Valley on the frontier with Jordan, which Olmert characterized as a "security border."

Even with these areas under Israeli control, the plan would mean a pullout from most of the West Bank and removal of dozens of settlements.

Olmert said if negotiations with the Palestinians do not bear fruit, Israel must determine its own future.

With the militant group Hamas about to present a new Palestinian government, resumption of stalled peace negotiations appears unlikely. Hamas, which has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, does not accept the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East, and Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group and refuses to talk to its leaders.

Hamas leaders met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza late Thursday. Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Hamas has not completed formation of its government and the president offered an extra two weeks, as Palestinian law provides.

A meeting between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah Party, which was trounced by the militant group in the January parliamentary vote, also failed to achieve agreement on a joint government, participants said.

In the absence of peace talks, Olmert's unilateral approach is meant as a bold initiative to solve Israel's main security problems, in the image of Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza last summer under Sharon, but he has been criticized by Israeli hawks and doves, as well as Palestinians.

Labor and other dovish parties are sniping at Olmert for undermining efforts to restart peace negotiations, while Likud and other hawks charge that unilateral Israeli pullbacks amount to a reward for Palestinian violence.

Abbas 锟斤拷 who was elected separately and has almost three years left in his term 锟斤拷 rejected any further unilateral Israeli steps, demanding that future moves should be the result of negotiations.

But Olmert told The Jerusalem Post he had no intention of meeting Abbas after Israel's elections because he sees him as part and parcel of a Palestinian Authority dominated by Hamas.

Olmert also said Israel would build between its largest West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem, three miles away, as part of its border-drawing initiative.

Palestinians object to the planned construction of 3,650 housing units, saying it would cut off Jerusalem from the West Bank and kill their dreams to set up a capital there. Last year, Israel froze the plan under pressure from Washington, which sees it as an obstacle to peacemaking.

"It is inconceivable that we should speak of Maaleh Adumim as a part of the state of Israel while leaving it as an island or an isolated enclave," Olmert told the Haaretz daily.

"It's entirely clear that the (territorial) continuity between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim will be a built-up continuity," he added. "This is clear both to the Palestinians and the Americans."

A US Embassy spokesman had no comment on Olmert's remarks.