Israel Rejects Iraq Study Group Proposals
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday rejected a U.S. advisory group's conclusion that a concerted effort to resolve Israel's conflict with its neighbors will help stabilize the situation in Iraq, saying there is no connection between the two issues.
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:
A panel appointed by the Palestine Liberation Organization has 
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.
Lebanon's Hezbollah-led opposition called Thursday for its supporters to take to the streets this weekend in a massive show of force, stepping up the pressure on the U.S.-backed government, which has vowed not to give in to protesters. Street demonstrations by Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian parties, which want to pressure Prime Minister Fuad Saniora into quitting, were in their seventh day with no end in sight to the deepening political crisis that is threatening to tear the country apart.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said negotiations for the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants are in their final stage, according to a newspaper report. Militants linked to the Islamic militant group Hamas, which leads the Palestinian government, crossed the Gaza border into Israel and captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit in June.
Olmert will meet with Pope Benedict XVI during a trip to Europe next week. Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said the meeting will take place at the Vatican on Wednesday. There were no immediate details on the agenda.
Wealthy Israeli businessman Avi Shaked is offering the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas a billion dollars in investments in the Palestinian territories, if it abandons violence and makes peace with Israel, reports Berger. Shaked says Israelis and Palestinians are "cousins" who should be able to talk. It's a high risk investment but Shaked knows all about that. He made his fortune running Internet gambling sites.
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.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. 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.
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Posted 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.