JERUSALEM, March 17, 2008
Defiant Olmert Says Expansion To Continue
Israeli PM Rankles Palestinians Over Construction Of Jewish Neighborhood In E. Jerusalem
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, rekindled the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Monday, March 17, 2008 alongside Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Merkel is on a three day official visit to Israel. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
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Interactive Mideast Conflict Events, key players and a history of the world's most unstable region.
Israel plans to build hundreds of new apartments in Har Homa, a neighborhood in the section of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians. The U.S. has said such construction is unhelpful to peace efforts, and the Palestinians say the project is undermining peace talks.
Olmert called Har Homa an "inseparable" part of Jerusalem. He said Israel would continue building in those areas of Jerusalem, including Har Homa, that it expects to keep under a final peace agreement.
"Everyone knows that there is no chance that the State of Israel will give up a neighborhood like ... Har Homa. It is an inseparable part of Jerusalem," Olmert said in a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The fate of Jerusalem is the most contentious issue in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which were relaunched last November after seven years of fighting. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it to its capital.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state that would also include the West Bank and Gaza Strip, other areas captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
Under the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, Israel must stop construction in Jewish settlements, while the Palestinians must disarm militants.
Some 250,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, along with 180,000 Israelis in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. The U.S. says the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem must also be considered settlements. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat reiterated that Israel must halt all settlement construction, including in Jerusalem. "If they really want the year 2008 to be a year of peace, then this cannot be achieved with the continuation of settlement activities," Erekat said.
He called for U.S. intervention. Washington has agreed to monitor Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the "road map" peace plan.
In other developments:
Olmert has promised not to build any new settlements, but said Israel expects to maintain control of the Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and major settlement blocs in the West Bank as part of a final peace deal. Construction in these areas has continued.
"We have announced that there will be places where there will be additional building. These are places that will remain with Israel in any constellation, and this includes first and foremost Jerusalem, and everyone knows it," he said Monday.
Merkel said she had raised the issue of settlement construction with Olmert and noted that halting settlement activity is part of the road map. "We agree that all sides should try as much as possible to keep their obligations, and I've pointed out that both sides have things left to do," she said.
Olmert also announced that peace talks would resume later Monday. The Palestinians had suspended the negotiations early this month to protest a bloody Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Israel hopes to reach a peace deal with the moderate government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank by the end of the year. At the same time, Israel has been battling Abbas' rival Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. The Islamic militant Hamas seized control of Gaza last June from Abbas' forces.
A new poll released Monday showed that Hamas' popularity has increased over the past three months at the expense of Abbas and his Fatah Party.
Recent months have been especially volatile in Gaza. Hamas blew up Gaza's border with Egypt to ease an Israeli blockade on the area, and Israel killed more than 120 Palestinians in its recent Gaza offensive. Palestinian attackers have bombarded southern Israel with rockets and 14 Israelis have died in Palestinian attacks. In addition, Abbas' efforts to make peace with Israel have made no visible progress.
These political developments have "managed to present Hamas as successful in breaking the siege (on Gaza) and as a victim of Israeli attacks," said the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, the independent think tank that conducted the survey. The events also presented Abbas and Fatah "as impotent, unable to change the bitter reality in the West Bank or ending Israeli occupation through diplomacy."
If parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would receive 35 percent of the vote, compared to 42 percent for Fatah, the survey said. In December, Hamas would have received 31 percent, compared to 49 percent for Fatah.
In presidential elections, Abbas would be in a tie with Hamas candidate Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Gaza, the poll showed. Abbas would capture 46 percent of the votes if elections were held today, down from 56 percent in December, while Haniyeh would take 47 percent, up from 37 percent.
The survey questioned 1,270 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Add a Comment See all 62 Comments
- Go Israel! I mean really - what have the Arabs done for humanity except develop a new use for picnic blankets
- Reply to this comment
- wind up bombed. Is that what you want in your piety? Millions killed?
Posted by RowdyTexan2 ...a Jihadist sympathizer and a coward...NEXT!!
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Posted by underdogus at 10:05 AM : Mar 18, 2008
Dumba/s/s Neon supporter! Hide like a sneaky little twit scared of your own shadow and a few radicals from some pissant little countries in the Middle East.
Talk about coward! Stay in your little hidey hole and keep drinking out of your little tippie cup! - Reply to this comment
- THE WORLD is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do NOTHING...Albert Einstein...
Posted by underdogus at 09:51 AM : Mar 18, 2008
You want an Einstein quote? Here''s your Einstein quote:
"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."
Albert Einstein
How do you like Mr. Einstein now, eh? - Reply to this comment
- Israel/The Jews will never be exiled again, regardless of the propaganda that Muslims like closethippy post on these forums. Biblical prophecy is unfolding and the return of the Jews blah, blah, freaking blah..."
Posted by TruthWord08 at 09:04 AM : Mar 18, 2008
I''m not a Muslim. In fact, I''m a card carrying member of American Atheits, INC. and very proud of it.
My family is Palestinian Christian and we feel as strongly about Palestine as your next door Hamas neighbor.
This has all to do with human rights and nothing to do with religion. Hamas itself run 6 Palestinian Christian candidates when we held the biggest and freest elections ever in the history of the Arab world back in January 2006.
You guys have made life a hell for us. For the last 300 years since a group of German missionaries went to Palestine all you J Freaks have been doing is distort what the reality of the situation is just so you can claim the freakin messiah is coming.
You''re shameless and demented. You have nothing to say about the historical facts in my post because you know nothing about history and couldn''t care less for it.
The only thing you read is the freaking Babble just like a Taliban whose only concern is god, god, god and the Quran, Quran, Quran and to hell with everything else.
We need to put you guys in place so you stop making trouble for everyone because you believe your Santa Claus is coming back to give you the entire world. - Reply to this comment
- There is a lot of talk about terrorism, but not much about why there is terroism.
- Reply to this comment
- Here is a word..WHO CARES?? about ''Quetzalcoatllamabada bin ba da bum"
- Reply to this comment
- Here is a word..
Quetzalcoatl. - Reply to this comment
- how would you like it if the U.S. Was invaded by foreigners in search of their holy land??
Posted by Quetzal0666 at 09:48 AM : Mar 18, 2008
+ report abuse
**************
hey isnt that what these islamic terrorist wants to do??? not for the holy land but to rid the world of your decadent liberal ideology.. - Reply to this comment
- I do Read it, and theres absolutely nothing in it concerning Genocide on a grand scale to illegally emigrate from Europe to form a crummy little country!!
Posted by Quetzal0666 at 09:57 AM : Mar 18, 2008
+ report abuse
*****i think there is..no europe..but there is..here is a word..MOSES - Reply to this comment
- The Ishreal of the bible and the Ishreal occupying Palestine are not the same thing.......
- Reply to this comment
- a crummy little country!!
Posted by Quetzal0666 ..you read the bible but you keep calling ISRAEL a "crummy lil country" ..I will Bless those who Bless ISRAEL and curse those who curse Israel Gen:12.. - Reply to this comment
- wind up bombed. Is that what you want in your piety? Millions killed?
Posted by RowdyTexan2 ...a Jihadist sympathizer and a coward...NEXT!! - Reply to this comment
- It does not matter what the Palestinian propagandists like closethippy2 say on here and how they try to distort history, because when it''''s all said and done, Israel will still be standing strong.
That is all.
TW08
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Posted by TruthWord08 at 09:04 AM : Mar 18, 2008
Sorry, but it doesn''t matter what you say either. The land this bunch of Nazi Separatist Zionists have squatted on has belongrf to eleven different nations in the course of history and might belong to another eleven nations in the future. You do not in fact know anything except what the Jews themselves wrote in the Bible about their history.
Personally, I think Texans are God''s chosen people and should have Israel. I''m gonna write it down in a book and claim Israel as my own, and it will be just as believable as anybody else writing their own book of history and making such a claim.
If Israel doesn''t sit down and make peace with ALL their neighbors, I suspect the US will own Isareal AND incorporate it before all is said and done.
Keep supporting the Neocon nazi''s and the Israeli nazi''s Singinrick, and sombody''s gonna wind up bombed. Is that what you want in your piety? Millions killed? - Reply to this comment
- I do Read it, and theres absolutely nothing in it concerning Genocide on a grand scale to illegally emigrate from Europe to form a crummy little country!!
- Reply to this comment
- Quetzal0666...read the bible....
- Reply to this comment
- THE WORLD is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do NOTHING...Albert Einstein...
- Reply to this comment
- underdogus at 09:47 AM : Mar 18, 2008
......
how would you like it if the U.S. Was invaded by foreigners in search of their holy land?? - Reply to this comment
- crummy little illegal country in the middle of nowhere???
Posted by Quetzal0666 ..another "Muslim" supporter... - Reply to this comment
- opps LION...for the grammar police..
- Reply to this comment
- Why does the whole world have to suffer on behalf of a crummy little illegal country in the middle of nowhere???
- Reply to this comment
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