Annapolis Conference: Olmert says Abbas is his friend
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has just finished addressing the Annapolis conference, in the public opening session, and he, too, spoke mainly to his own domestic constituency.
But, he did say, at the end, that Palestinian President Mahmoud was his “friend”: “I invite you, my friend, Mahmoud Abbas, and your people, to join us on the long road to peace [through this newly-agreed negotiating process and the "painful compromises" that it will necessarily entail]. Together we shall start, and together we shall arrive.” Olmert had just said that “there is no just solution other than two national states for two peoples”.
Olmert said that he did not come to Annapolis to settle historical controversies. But, he said, “I want to tell you, from the bottom of my heart, I acknowledge, I know that (alongside Israeli suffering…) your people too have suffered for many years, and some stil suffer. Many Palestinians are still in camps (cut off from the world) … and living with a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation … This is the deepest foundation that formented hatred toward us”, he said.
Olmert said: “We want peace, but we demand an end to terror, incitement, and hatred.” He spoke about “dreadful terrorism perpetuated (against the Israeli people) by Palestinian organizations”, that he witnessed when he was the mayor of Jerusalem, and about the “ongoing shooting of Qassam rockets in the south of Israel, particularly in Sderot”. He also said “we are anxiously awaiting the return of our missing sons — Gilad, Elad and Udi — kidnapped by “terrorist organizations”.
He also said that the absence of Palestinian government institutions, and law enforcement, as well as the absence of a legal system based in democratic values, are all factors that deter us from moving forward. But the time has come, he said.
And, Olmert added, “in the course of negotiations between us”, the two delegations would be working on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, as well as the Roadmap, and the letter that George Bush addressed to Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 (which said that negotiations for the establishment of a Palestinian state would take into account present realities — interpreted as meaning that large Jewish settlements could remain in the West Bank). And, Olmert said, the result would reaffirm that Israel was “the national home of the Jewish people”:
Tags: Annapolis conference, Ehud Olmert, Israel