IS OLMERT GETTING READY TO OFFER PALIS MORE LAND?

Olmert offers Arabs more ‘sweeping, painful’ concessions (JNW)
Just how far he is prepared to go to keep his word is unclear, but a domestically increasingly unpopular Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Thursday messaged the Israel-hating Palestinian Arabs that he is ready to make “sweeping, painful and tough” concessions to persuade them that Israel serious seeks peace.

Olmert, who according to nationwide surveys only has the support of two or three percent of the Israeli electorate, appeared to be pinning his hopes of leaving a legacy on the “Palestinians” snapping at, and swallowing, his bait.

The concessions he is believed to be contemplating include the surrender of more Jewish lands to the Arabs and a severing for all time of any Jewish claim to great swathes of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

Israeli Pullback Unlikely - Joshua Brilliant
A year and a half after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza so many problems remained unresolved that analysts believe it unlikely Israel would go for a similar pullback in the West Bank. According to Hebrew University Professor Yaakov Bar-Siman-Tov, the Gaza withdrawal signaled the end of the idea of "land for peace." Bar-Siman-Tov doubted there would be another unilateral disengagement in the near future. In the past seven years Israel carried out two unilateral withdrawals: from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Both did not provide peace.

The Islamic Hamas claimed its fighters forced the Israelis out of Gaza, and Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said he believed the disengagement demonstrated Israel's weakness, Bar-Siman-Tov noted. When Hizbullah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and triggered a month-long war, "the entire strategy of a unilateral disengagement was dealt a serious blow. It was proven, for the second time, that it was ineffective (in producing peace)." Gazans have also continued cross-border attacks. (UPI)