Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with the foreign press corps Wednesday, taking questions and promising that withdrawal from Judea and Samaria is “a process.”
Olmert began by delivering a prepared statement in English, saying that although Israel, backed by the Quartet (US, UN, Russia and European Union), will not accept a Palestinian Authority (PA) government that does not accept Israel’s right to exist and shun terror, he will continue to conduct talks with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.
“I will continue to maintain the bilateral track," Olmert said. "I will meet with Abu Mazen [Abbas]. My staff will meet with his staff on a regular basis, hoping to create the necessary environment that will be helpful for the relations between us and them. We want to contribute to the quality of life of the Palestinian people living in Gaza and in the West Bank. We believe that however mistaken their leadership can sometimes be, people don’t have to suffer from the mistakes of their leaders.”
Olmert also addressed the Iranian threat in a similar manner to his speech at the Herzliya Conference, putting much hope in the international community: “It appears that up until now the Iranians did not respond in a manner that all of us wanted and therefore the international community will have to think of additional measures in order to influence the Iranians to change their basic position. My personal view is that the sanctions that were already applied and other measures taken by the international community, including financial measures, are effective. They influence and they make an important contribution to what may eventually appear as a new perception of opportunities and realities for the Iranians… A lot more has to be done, but I think that the Iranians are not as close to the technological threshold as they claim to be.”
Olmert ended his speech with a list of Israel’s economic achievements since he took office, mentioning American billionaire Warren Buffet’s confidence in Israel as he did at the Herzliya Conference and in his address to the OU convention.
Olmert then answered questions from news correspondents.
A BBC correspondent asked: “When the Israeli public voted you into office a year and a half ago, it was [due to] your promise to withdraw from large parts of the occupied territories. Why are you still building in the West Bank?” 
I am absolutely loyal to the same position that I expressed before the election, that there should be a two-state solution and that the Palestinians will have a contiguous territory in the West Bank
Olmert: “It is true that I said that I want to reach a new agreement, preferably that will allow the Palestinians to have their state alongside the State of Israel. This is my vision. This is the vision of the United States. This is the vision of the international community, and I share this vision entirely… The strategy has remained the same and I haven’t changed my vision and I haven’t changed my commitments, and I'm going to do everything in my power to continue to build up bridges between me and Abu Mazen."
Addressing the claim that Israel is building in Judea and Samaria, Olmert said, “There is not any violation of the basic Israeli commitment that there will not be any building outside of the existing settlement limits as they were. There is natural growth and everything that was done was done within the framework of the existing settlements as a result of natural growth. There is not any government building, there is no policy of building, there are no government investments in the territories, certainly not in the last year.”
Israeli-Arab journalist Majdi Halbi then asked, in Hebrew, how long Israel will continue to restrain itself in the face of rockets and attempted suicide bombings.
Olmert declined to answer the question in detail, saying, “The answer is that we are not going to restrain ourselves forever… However, I'm not going to give you now any specific timetable or dates of when we are going to respond, but it is clear that the patience of Israel is being tested [only] too often and I think that it is a terrible mistake by the factions in Gaza that are stretching and challenging the Israeli patience for such a long time. At the end, we will respond and we will reach out for those who are responsible for the threats and for the shooting against innocent Israelis.”
Asked if he was not just "spinning wheels" in summit meetings with PA leaders, Olmert said, “I'll never lose my desire to talk with every Palestinian that I will find a genuine potential partner for peace with the State of Israel… Unfortunately, there are not too many, and I personally think that we have to realize that the Palestinians are divided. I will not speak with Hamas, I will not speak with Mashaal, I will not speak with Haniyeh, I will not speak with a government which does not accept the very right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state as it is. But if the Palestinian president, who was directly elected by the people, shares these basic commitments and repeats it publicly and formally, do I have to also say to him: I will not talk with you?"
Ahmed Budeiri of the BBC’s Arabic-language news channel asked: “Israeli people actually voted for you to do the Realignment Plan (withdrawal from most of Judea and Samaria –ed.), and this was the campaign of Kadima. Are you still committed to this, in a sense that there is no final status negotiations with the Palestinians?”
“The Realignment is a process,” Olmert said. “The vision is a two-state solution. Now, the most important part, of course, is the substance - or what is the vision. What is the final permanent situation that we envision for the Palestinians and ourselves? And I am absolutely loyal to the same position that I expressed before the election, that there should be a two-state solution and that the Palestinians will have a contiguous territory in the West Bank and that they will be able to live their own secured, independent lives in their own State. And this has not changed. How to come about it, how to accomplish it, how to carry out this plan depends on circumstances. I hope that the circumstances will allow us to reach an agreement with a Palestinian government that will recognize the Quartet principles and will accept the right of Israel to exist as an independent State. And in that case, this will be the best possible way in which I will be able to carry out my commitments.”
Steven Erlanger of The New York Times asked: “The other day in parliament, before a committee, army intelligence officer, Mr. Baidatz, testified that he thought Hizbullah was stronger today than it was before the war, and your Defense Minister, Mr. Peretz, said: “No, no, no, that's not really true. Their potential is to be stronger,” and that was an unusual debate. I'm curious to ask you, as the head of the government, whether Hizbullah is stronger now than it was before the war, and if that is true, is that a failure of Israel's campaign this summer?”
“I think that Hizbullah is weaker, much weaker, than they were before," Olmert said. "It is true that they are trying to smuggle arms into Lebanon. It is true that they are making efforts in order to rearm themselves to the level that they had before the war, but it is also true that the south of Lebanon now is filled with 30,000 or 25,000 soldiers of the army of Lebanon and of the international force, which make the life of Hizbullah almost intolerable in that part of the country, and the fact is that since August 14th, there was not one case that a Hizbullah soldier surfaced in uniform and with guns in the south of Lebanon, and when it happened, by the way, then they were killed by the Israeli army when they were present there. And when they try to surface now, they are disarmed and arrested by the international force and the Lebanese force.
“So I think the fact that all along the Israeli border there are not any more bunkers of the Hizbullah, that they don’t have the same freedom of movement that they had, that there is an international force in the south of Lebanon together with the Lebanese force, has changed dramatically the basic situation in the south of Lebanon and has definitely weakened the options of Hizbullah in comparison to what it was.”
Joel Greenberg of the Chicago Tribune asked the prime minister why Israel, which has negotiated with the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] while it was still a terrorist group, and still negotiates with Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah group controls several active terrorist groups, objects to negotiations with Syria due to its support of terrorist groups. “Isn’t that the point of the negotiations? In other words, wouldn’t it be wise to check their intentions and through that, to get them to stop their activities? Isn’t that the logical way to proceed in order to get them to stop the activities you say are blocking negotiations? Aren’t negotiations the key to stopping this activity?”
Olmert replied: “The purpose of negotiations is to make peace, if they take place, not to find out that the other side that you are negotiating with is not interested in the main thing which is the driving force for you, which is peace. So as I said, we are interested in peace, not in the ‘industry of peace.’ We are interested in peace, not in the process of peace. We are interested in peace with Syria, not in helping Syria pretend that it is now a peace-loving country and therefore it has to be released of all the efforts made by the international community to establish an international tribunal to inquire into the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Lebanon and of the violent Syrian involvement with Hizbullah in Lebanon…How can you try to make, sit and negotiate with someone who at the same time is preparing your assassination from the backside [sic]?”
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