Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Israeli leader pledges foreign talks on pullout

Mark Lavie Associated Press

JERUSALEM – Two days before a crucial election, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged Sunday to consult the United States and Europe about his plan to pull out of much of the West Bank, remove settlements and set his country’s borders within four years.

Olmert’s Kadima party is ahead in the polls, and his two main opponents devoted the end of their campaigns to criticizing him and his plan, after declaring the vote a referendum on the future of Israel’s presence in the West Bank, captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War.

No official campaigning is allowed today, the day before the election. Israeli soldiers along the Lebanon border began voting Sunday, the military said.

A poll for Channel 10 TV and the Haaretz daily released Sunday showed Kadima winning 36 seats of the 120 in the parliament, the hawkish Likud 14 and the moderate Labor 18. Pollster Camil Fuchs said the survey questioned 800 voters with a margin of error of less than 3 percentage points. He said 22 percent remained undecided. In all, 31 parties are competing.

Olmert’s plan has breathed life into an election campaign that has been sleepy despite earthquakes in Israeli politics – the exit of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was felled by a stroke on Jan. 4 shortly after he founded Kadima and is still in a coma.

Olmert, who took over Kadima from Sharon, proposes completing a barrier between Israel and the West Bank that has been under construction for more than four years, incorporating main settlement blocs on the “Israeli” side and moving settlers outside the barrier into the blocs.

Olmert said he would try to build consensus around the plan in the fractious Israeli public. Settlers, hawkish supporters and most Orthodox Jews opposed Sharon’s unilateral pullout from Gaza last summer, forcing Sharon to reshuffle his Cabinet, leave Likud and create Kadima.

The United States and Europe have opposed Israeli settlements in the West Bank and called for borders to be fixed through negotiations, not unilateral action.

Olmert told Israel radio he is hopeful he can gain support for his position.

“I have a basis to believe that there is great openness in the United States and in other places to listen to these positions and also to seriously discuss them,” Olmert said.

On Sunday, Israeli official Shlomo Dror said Israel’s liaison officers in the West Bank will stop dealing with the Palestinian Authority after the Hamas Cabinet takes office, switching their focus to international organizations.

Israel has already suspended transfer of taxes and customs it collects for the Palestinians, and Western donors are considering cuts in vital international aid once Hamas takes office.

Olmert has said he would give Hamas, which swept Jan. 25 Palestinian legislative elections, some time to show whether it would accept basic demands put by Israel and the Western world: recognizing Israel, endorsing interim peace accords and renouncing violence after a history of dispatching suicide bombers into Israel.