Israelis must understand that even their country's closest international allies want Israel to pull back in the West Bank and share Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published yesterday.
When speaking of the future, "the world that is friendly to Israel ... speaks of Israel in terms of the '67 borders. It speaks of the division of Jerusalem," Olmert said in the interview with the English-language Israeli daily the Jerusalem Post.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want those territories for an independent state, with east Jerusalem as their capital.
Olmert has launched negotiations with the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on a peace deal that both leaders hope to reach by the end of this year. In the past, Olmert has said Israel would have to withdraw from parts of the West Bank and has signaled he would be prepared to hand over some Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty.
However, Olmert told the Jerusalem Post that Israel would be able to hold on to some areas in the West Bank in any peace deal, with US approval. Although Israel has promised to halt building in its West Bank settlements, Olmert said that didn't apply to all settlements.
He mentioned Maaleh Adumim, a large settlement in the West Bank outside Jerusalem, which he said was "an indivisible part of Jerusalem and the state of Israel. I don't think when people are talking about settlements they are talking about Maaleh Adumim."
Palestinians reject any settlement construction, saying it compromises peace negotiations and violates Israel's commitments. They also want Israel to halt all construction in east Jerusalem.
In the interview yesterday, Olmert said Israel had to withdraw from Palestinian territory to preserve itself as a democracy and as a predominantly Jewish state.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS