Thursday, October 02, 2008 Israel Today Staff
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday
said that the recent peace offer made by Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert is enough to get a final status agreement signed, but
recognized that the outgoing Israeli leader does not have the
ability to implement the proposal.
"We could have peace in two days" if Olmert's offer could be
implemented, Abbas told a group of Muslim clerics at the tail end
of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Olmert made his offer in a Rosh Hashanah interview with Israel's
largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot.
In the interview, Olmert said he was ready to withdraw from 93
percent of Judea and Samaria, including nearly all of eastern
Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. Olmert offered to make up the
difference by giving the Palestinians 5.5 percent of sovereign
Israeli land.
The proposed deal also included a full withdrawal from the Golan
Heights.
Abbas said he hopes that Olmert's proposal will form the
foundation of peace talks with his successor. The Palestinian
leader said he would like to view Olmert's offer as a peace
"deposit."
The international community tried to make sure that will be the
case when the Middle East Quartet last week insisted that all
Israeli offers, no matter how tentative,
be made binding.
Meanwhile, Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu
reiterated in a holiday interview with Israel National News that
the nation does not have a viable Palestinian peace partner with
whom to make a deal.
In another holiday interview with Israeli Internet portal
Walla!, Netanyahu said that if he regains the prime minister's
chair he will actually increase Jewish settlement activity and
shelf all talk of a peace deal leading to the creation of a
Palestinian Arab state.
There is no hope of a viable final status peace deal at this
point, said Netanyahu, so the best thing to do is forge an economic
arrangement with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.
Polls conducted over the past year consistently show that
Netanyahu will win the next national election by a healthy
margin.