Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday he had put his plan for an Israeli pullback from parts of the occupied West Bank on hold amid fears of rocket attacks by Arab militants on the Jewish state.
"I have no doubt that something has changed in the order of priorities I had believed to be correct," Olmert told parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, according to an official who regularly briefs reporters on its proceedings.
"At this moment, the issue of the realignment is not in the order of priorities as it was two months ago," Olmert said in his first appearance before the panel since 34 days of fighting with the Lebanese Hizbollah group ended in an August 14 cease-fire.
But he stopped short of declaring dead a plan that was the centrepiece of a manifesto that won him election in March. Olmert's chiefs of staff will soon meet with US officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and tell them that the plan for the Israeli pullback was no longer on the agenda, Israel's NRG Maariv Web site said.
The Israeli officials will relay the message that Olmert is interested in exploring alternative plans for progress with the Palestinians, the Web site said. Under Olmert's plan, Israel would remove dozens of isolated Jewish settlements in the West Bank and bolster major enclaves it wants to keep, thereby setting a permanent border by 2010. But resurgent violence in Gaza, which Israel evacuated last year, plus the Lebanon war appear to have dampened public support for territorial withdrawals.
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