Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert revealed on Sunday that when he was serving as Prime Minister, he had reached an agreement with the United States and then President George W. Bush, in which the US agreed to absorb 100,000 Palestinian Arab refugees. Olmert added that at the same time he struck a deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel would absorb only a small number of refugees.
Speaking at a conference by the Geneva Initiative, Olmert said: “The numbers discussed were below 20,000, but this would require an end to the conflict and a Palestinian announcement that they would not make any more demands. If we had reached an agreement, it would have changed the map of the world and the entire Middle East. We are not to blame. If there is no agreement, it's because the Palestinian side was not prepared to take the extra step that we made.”
Olmert addressed those who had criticized the passages from his new autobiography that had been published over the weekend, and said that those critics are ignoring the facts.
“I don’t want to get into this issue. When the book comes out I’ll be happy if you buy it,” said Olmert.
Earlier on Sunday, Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak traded accusations over the autobiography. Olmert accused Barak of attempting to foil a valuable security operation and of “begging” to join Kadima. Barak termed the former PM's statements “pathetic.”
During his speech Olmert said: “If one is writing, one must write the truth... Since I am writing memoirs about the creation of Kadima, and Kadima's place as influential in politics, how could I not write about who begged to join Kadima, and who didn't, and how those who didn't join Kadima called it 'a party of refugees'?”
Meanwhile, a Palestinian Authority source denied Olmert’s claims about the refugees. The source told Yediot Aharonot that if such an agreement had been reached, it would have been with the US alone.
“We wanted Israel to absorb hundreds of thousands, while Israel talked about absorbing far fewer,” said the source and confirmed that various countries around the world had agreed to take in thousands.