Palestinian Authority officials quoted Saturday in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had agreed in principal to allow Arab or Muslim authorities to control the Temple Mount.  Olmert had asked to keep the Old City of Jerusalem along with the Mount of Olives and the neighborhood of Mei Shiloach (Silwan), they said, but was willing to split control in a manner that would allow all religions freedom of worship.

The sources said negotiations between Olmert and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had failed, as Olmert’s offers did not come close to meeting Abbas’s expectations.  Olmert wants to keep 15 percent of Judea and Samaria, including part of the Jordan River Valley, they said, and is unwilling to allow hundreds of thousands of foreign Arabs to settle in Israel.  Abbas, on the other hand, says he will allow Israel to keep a maximum of two percent of Judea and Samaria, and insists that at least 100,000 foreign Arabs be granted Israeli citizenship in the next decade.