OLMERT: ISRAEL NEEDS TO WITHDRAW FROM WEST BANK

OLMERT CONTINUES TO NEGOTIATE AGAINST HIMSELF. HE WILL FOREVER DESTROY THE STEREOTYPE THAT JEWS ARE CRAFTY BARGAINERS.

PM: Israel should leave W. Bank, but not unilaterally (JPost)
Anyone who believes that Israel can maintain it current hold on all the West Bank is "living in a dream," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Friday, reiterating that Israel "needs to withdraw."

Speaking at a forum of Jezreel Valley farmers, Olmert said, however, that Israel would not make any unilateral withdrawals, and that any steps would need to be negotiated with the Palestinian Authority government.

"Everyone understands that the state of Israel can't exist without a guarantee of a Jewish majority," Olmert said. According to the prime minister, in order to ensure a Jewish majority, Israel would have to make "tough decisions."

Olmert did not address Haim Ramon's proposal to withdraw from approximately 70 percent of the West Bank and evacuate a small number of settlements. ....

Responding to a query by reporters on how Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah had managed to sneak into a meeting between Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Damascus Thursday, Olmert said, "no reply I could give would sound the way I'd want it to."