Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel must give up almost the entire occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem as the price for peace with the Palestinians, in an interview published on Monday. "What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me," Olmert told the Yediot Aharonot daily in what was widely seen as the political testament of an outgoing leader left with only limited powers.
"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," said Olmert, who heads a transitional government following his September 21 resignation.
"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," he told the mass-circulation newspaper. "Including in Jerusalem," he said in reference to the mainly Arab eastern part of the Holy City which Israel occupied and annexed after the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
His comments may spark deep controversy. Israel officially considers Jerusalem its "eternal, undivided" capital. Giving up parts of the city is key to Israel's security, Olmert said, pointing to deadly July attacks by Palestinians from east Jerusalem who ploughed through crowded streets with bulldozers.
"Whoever wants to hold on to all of the city's territory will have to bring 270,000 Arabs inside the fences of sovereign Israel. It won't work," Olmert said. "A decision has to be made. This decision ... contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years."
"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 said. The Yediot Aharonot said Olmert "admits that he erred in his foreign policy views and actions for decades." Palestinian negotiatiator Saeb Erakat said Israel must "translate these statements into reality" if it really wants peace.
"We haven't seen... a concrete offer," he told AFP, stressing "the road to peace is through ending the occupation and (Israeli) settlements in the West Bank." Dormant negotiations were revived at a US-hosted conference last November, with both sides pledging to reach a peace deal by the end of this year.
While little visible progress has been achieved, Olmert was convinced "we are very close to reaching agreement." He said that also applies to indirect negotiations with long-time foe Syria that were relaunched in May after an eight-year hiatus, with Turkey acting as go-between.
Peace will come at a price for both sides, with Israel giving up the annexed Golan Heights while Syria must end ties with Iran and no longer back "the Hamas terrorism, the al Qaeda terrorism and the jihad in Iraq," he said.