Olmert's Offer

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
17 December 09

Olmert and Abbas, back in the days they were both prime ministers, met someting like 35 times (a lot). Their final meeting was on September 16th 2008, when Olmert made Abbas a proposal, and Abbas never returned. Ever since then further details have been seeping out. Yesterday Haaretz carried an interview with Abbas in which he confirmed much of what Olmert has been saying.

"The next day, we started talking about maps. Olmert showed me one map and I brought back one of ours. He showed me a new map and I brought back a map of ours. And so it went. We agreed that 1.9 percent would be with you and Olmert demanded 6.5 percent. It was a negotiation, we didn't complete it. As a shopper enters a store, that's how we held the talks."

Abbas also admits, in a back-handed sort of way, that the talks somehow stopped:

According to Abbas, a few days before Operation Cast Lead, he told then-U.S. president George W. Bush that despite extensive American efforts, the talks had not been completed. "He asked me if it would be all right if on January 3 we sent [chief negotiator] Saeb Erekat, and Israel would send an envoy to complete the talks. But a few days before the departure for Washington, Saeb called Shalom [Turgeman, Olmert's political adviser] and said the situation did not allow it. Everything got stuck."

Neat, isn't that? In mid-December ("a few days before Operation Cast Lead") Abbas confirmed to George Bush that the talks had stopped. Bush tried to restart them, but the Gaza operation interfered. Note, however, that what the Gaza operation interfered with was not the negotiations but rather an attempt by the American president to re-start them. Interventions by American presidents are usually acts of last resort, so the negotiations must have been very stuck well before Gaza - as Olmert has been saying all along, and Abbas now confirms.

(Continue article)

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