Deputy Prime Minister and Shas party chairman Eli Yishai told Channel 2 TV's Meet the Press that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will not be making any statements that commit Israel in the upcoming Annapolis conference. "The Prime Minister knows our position and has said several times that the talks [at Annapolis] will be of a general nature, without any kind of commitment," Yishai said in the program, which was recorded before the Sabbath.
"I don't see the conference as something that will result in upheavals," he said, "but if there are things that we won't be able to live with, we will not be in the coalition." Yishai added: "We have known how to leave the coalition in the past. We were in the opposition and we got stronger there. We are in the coalition in order to exert influence, and when I feel that we cannot exert influence, we won't be there."
Yishai said that the way Shas sees Annapolis is "very identical" to the way Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Minister for Strategic Matters Avigdor Lieberman see it.
Yishai downplayed the significance of discussing Jerusalem with the PLO: Barak, Sharon and Net
Barak, Sharon and Netanyahu spoke about Jerusalem too, he said, "but they said no."
anyahu spoke about Jerusalem too, he said, "but they said no."
Yishai seemed to believe that Olmert will be able to weather the Annapolis conference without stating a concrete position about Jerusalem. "People will always talk about everything. Let's differentiate between talking about something, and Israel giving something up or stating a certain position," he said. "Voicing a position in the conference undercuts the previous agreement, and our stability."
Abbas: Israel Not Fulfilling Obligations
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas called U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the weekend and complained that Israel is not fulfilling its side of agreements that were reached with it.
According to senior PLO officials, the Palestinian Authority has begun taking action against armed terror organizations, as it committed to do, but Israel has not frozen construction on the communities of Judea and Samaria as it promised to do.