TEL AVIV, Dec. 7, 2006
Israel Rejects Iraq Study Group Proposals
PM Doesn't See Link Iraq War-Israel Link, Doesn't Want Talks With Syria
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks at to editors in Tel Aviv, Dec. 7, 2006. (AP)
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, at his office in Ramallah, Dec. 7, 2006. (AP)
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White tents, portable latrines and water tanks erected by Hezbollah protesters block an intersection in front of the prime minister's complex in Beirut, Dec. 7, 2006. (AP)
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Interactive Mideast Conflict Events, key players and a history of the world's most unstable region.
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Interactive Iraq Study Group Report Bipartisan commission warns that situation is "grave and deteriorating."
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Photo Essay Historic Vote Palestinians vote in their first parliamentary election in a decade.
Olmert also rebuffed the group's recommendation that Israel open negotiations with Syria, but said Israelis want "with all our might" to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Iraq Study Group report, released Wednesday in Washington, calls for direct talks between Israel and its neighbors, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians and says resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict would improve conditions in Iraq.
Olmert rejected that finding. "The attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mideast issue — we have a different view," Olmert said during the prime minister's annual meeting with Israeli journalists. "To the best of my knowledge, President Bush, throughout the recent years, also had a different view on this."
Most Israelis oppose handing the Golan Heights back to a radical regime like Syria, as the study group recommends, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. Israel is also concerned about the report's call for the U.S. to open a dialogue with Iran. Israeli officials say the best strategy to stop Iran's nuclear program is isolation, not dialogue.
In other developments:
recommended that the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (right), dissolve the militant Hamas-led government and call new elections as early as March, an official close to the president said. Abbas sought the committee's recommendations after declaring last week that his efforts to form a more moderate coalition government with Hamas had reached a dead end. Hamas denounced the notion of early elections.Answering reporters' questions for more than an hour, Olmert said conditions were not ripe to reopen long-dormant talks with Syria and added that he received no indications from Mr. Bush during his recent visit to Washington that the U.S. would push Israel to start such talks.
Palestinian officials were more receptive to the panel's recommendations.
"We welcome the Hamilton-Baker report and hope the U.S. administration will translate it into deeds," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "The region needs peace, the region needs dialogue and we have always stuck to dialogue toward a comprehensive peace."
Syrian President Bashar Assad has called in recent months for a new round of talks with Israel. Syria is a key backer of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group that battled Israel during an inconclusive month-long war last summer.
While some top Israeli officials have urged Olmert to accept Assad's offer, the prime minister said he didn't think talks would change Syria's close ties to radical anti-Israel groups.
"I don't think there is a Syrian desire for war with us. We certainly don't have a desire to fight with them. That doesn't mean conditions are ripe for us to negotiate with them," he said.
Olmert, however, said that Israel was deeply interested in restarting talks with the Palestinians and said Israel would work "with all our might" to make them happen.
He also welcomed a peace initiative put forward by Saudi Arabia, saying it contains "interesting innovations that should not be ignored." However, he did not fully endorse the plan, first floated in 2002, which called for Israel to withdraw from all of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, a stipulation Israel rejects.
Olmert also rejected suggestions that Israel's recent cease-fire with Palestinian militants in Gaza would allow the militants to rearm and regroup for another round of fighting, saying that Israel would not allow that to happen.
He said that despite occasional rocket attacks by Gaza militants at Israel, "we will continue to show restraint."
Olmert also addressed the controversy over Iran's nuclear ambitions, reiterating Israel's position that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, but will not take unilateral action, preferring that the dispute should be settled by the international community as a whole.
He also reiterated his support for the U.S. war in Iraq, a position that caused some controversy during his U.S. trip last month.
"We always felt, like other nations in our region, that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a major, major contribution to stability in our part of the world," he said.
©MMVI CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 51 CommentsPosted by Gaye5 at 10:34 PM : Dec 08, 2006"
So by you thinking then, Israel must not be peaceful; because so many are bent on its destruction? LOL
Same applies to the US; we have to be extra vigilant these days, even more so that most of the other countries on the planet.
By the way, evil empires don't need to commit genocide to display their oppressive and dictatorial nature.
So get your thinking straight with respect to the the American empire: Our expansionist and intrusive and domineering influence along with the US MILITARY ARE PLANET-WIDE!
No, child, we don't need to commit genocide to be domineering. There are too many ways that an evil empire can be destructive besides genocide. Just ask the Iraqis who were invaded UNPROVOKED!
LOL
Good retort to the ridiculous. LOL
Throughout history the nation who was the strongest and the better weapons always won... that is logical. And if you are a peaceful nation, then other nations will leave you alone if you have the best...hence peace....
The person who unleashed nuclear opened a can of worms, and I would far rather have America keeping a step ahead of other nations who are producing nuclear than being behind. America has had this capability for how many years now?? and they could have taken the world, and committed genicide of many natioins, but on the whole they only go into other countries when asked or if they are a threat to us...Yes America is a long way from Iraq, but the weapons dont discriminate distance when they can go great distances...
It is no better than many other very excellent letters on here...
So what else is buried there???
And yes FeelFree, I knew that America poured some money into Israel, but it is only a drop in the bucket of what goes into Iraq, plus we Australians send billions into Iraq also, along with other countries and with all the sales from oil they still cant make it..
Re: "Many of the writers here are bigots."
It takes a lot of courage to admit that. I may have given you less credit than you deserve.
Posted by ncolsens at 06:15 AM : Dec 08, 2006"
"weapons of war in the fight for peace"?
What a stupid and fantastic concept?
Only an adolescent mind or an overly brainwashed so-called 'military man' would talk such baby talk about 'peace'.
Unfortunate American minds like yours are precisely the reasons why the insecure and equally delusional Jews (and delusional Arabs too) are not about to give up their own 3,000 year-old fantasy about some 'promise land': The insecure and religiously fanatical Jews are at least smart enough to know that "weapons in the fight for peace" is an even more stupid a position than their own biblical bull position of 'promise land'.
The Jews are not about to give into such childish understanding of 'peace' and desert their tradition, as mindless and as laughable as the roots of those traditions may be.
And why should they?
We know the Jews are smart people.
Why give up one big load of krap about some delusional 'promise land' for an even bigger load of krap and misunderstanding about 'peace'? LOL
DUMBYA has allowed the Jews to "KILL AT WILL" in Gaza, the West Bank and the complete destruction on Lebonon. He will do anything that Olmert wants, the same as he did for that fat pig, Ariel Sharron. He publically backed the Palastinian election, until Hamas won ... now all bets are off, he has financially strangled the Palastinians.
As far as I am concerned ... give all of that land back to the Arabs so anyone can go there and live/visit in peace ... the way it was prior to 1948.
The ONLY reason that the US invaded Iraq is ... to save the JEWS from having to do it. The US and our MORON PRESIDENT was the only country that could do that, because if the JEWS tried it, every Arab country in the middle-east would have destroyed the JEWS.
All of the jews on this planet are not worth even 1 of the 3000 dead GI's in Iraq.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOpB1x5Qzyg
Posted by Gaye5 at 12:42 AM : Dec 08, 2006"
Who gives a rat's arse about the islamic insanity?
We are concerned about HUMANS, not idiotic ideology!
Hello!
And the Jewish own history tells of them ethnically cleansing the land of the HUMANS to build their first Jewrusalem on their way from Egypt.
And again coming out of Europe, the Jews are savagely repeating bad history by again ethnically cleansing the place of HUMANS to recreate their delusional 'promise land'.
The Jews don't care about fellow humans.
The Jews don't care about the cries of fellow humans.
And the Jews don't give a chit what the world maybe saying; because in their ignorance and arrogance, they think themselves some 'chosen people', special.
The Jews have blinders on!
They have one goal, a stupid piece of land, 'promise land'.
It is insanity to live that way.
The maniac muslims are not different.
Americans are making a huge mistake by fueling the fanaticism in the Middle East.
We shouldn't want to live with generations of vengeance and violence as 'normal living' as ALL the sick Semites have been doing.
That is worse than beastly living.
11. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, the Arabs are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country smaller than the state of New Jersey.
12. There is only one tiny Jewish nation. The 22 Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended herself each time and won.
13. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
14. The U.N. was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians. Kind of like its silence over the massacres of Algerians or Sudanese by Arab Muslim fascists.
15. The U.N are silent while Muslim terrorists blew up schools, mall's, bus's, and Synagogues killing babies, children and adults. The media reports are almost non existant in regards to the hundreds of families each year who cry for their dead as they hold their bloodied babies in their arms.. The world tells them to put up with the agression against them and condems Israel trying to protect itself.
America struck back when 3000 died in the Sep 11th disaster, Jews have disasters happen every day of their lives.
4. The Arabs Muslims conquered Palestine in 635 AD, stealing it from its legitimate Jewish rulers, Palestine was stolen from the Jews by the Muslims and not the other way around. Arab sovereignty over Palestine ended in 1071 when the area was conquered by Seljuk Turks. Palestinian Arabs never held sovereignty over and cannot even pronounce the name of their supposed homeland.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Qur'an (Koran).
7. King David founded the Jewish city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
9. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab Muslim lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
10. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be between 400,000 and 630,000, many of whom in fact were allowed to return after the Israeli war of Independence ended.. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands was much larger.
A FEW UNFASHIONABLE FACTS WORTH KNOWING ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Although Israel was a nation before 1312B.C, Israel became a nation-state in 1312 B.C, 2,000 years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
When the Jews started returning to their own country in 1948, the land was pretty devoid of permanant occupants, which consisted of some Jews (who had never left) and a few Arab nomads. It was only then that a few poor migrant workers from the surrounding Muslim countries began to flood in to work for the Jews. almost all of the people calling themselves "Palestinians" today are the descendants of those migrant workers.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C., the Jews have had dominion over the land for 1,000 years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years and beyond.
Posted by Gaye5 at 10:23 PM : Dec 07, 2006"
My 'source' is the history on the ground independent of your 'media'.
The people are ethnically cleansed by the Jews to create their delusional 'promise land'. That IS NOT media story. The refugees are there as proof!
Is that how you would show that you 'care' for fellow humans by ethnically cleansing them and making them refugees in foreign camps?
One can clearly observe a certain Israeli pattern: Every time there it seems like there could be a bit of peace progress, there are some devilish groups in Israel who will ALWAYS do something to derail any progress, and why?
Because the only 'peace' the Jews have ALWAYS been interested in is 'piece' of delusional 'promise land'!
This Israeli leader is throwing cold water on the carefully thought out recommendations; because our mundane peace IS NOT of importance to Jews, 'piece' of 'promise land' IS! And the Jews want want it ALL and not to give any ground!
Olmert really DOES have a turtle-face.
In the same way a vile vampire is repelled by the brilliant light of the Sun, your little mind likewise is repelled in disarray by the searing insights of my posts, right?
Isn't that the reason you are forced to make Agnim the topic? LOL
You are having as much time wrapping a warp mind about the truths spoken, as the Israelis are having a hard time wrapping their insecure and vengeful and non-peace minds around a recommendation for peace with her neighbors, and less body bags of Americans for nothing.
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