Word: olmert
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Officials are reluctant to get into specifics over Iran. But Mark Regev, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, told TIME: "We want to talk to the Americans about where we go from here, what steps have to be taken in the international community diplomatically. We would like to see heightened international pressure on the Iranians...
...however, remain skeptical. Mark Heller, director of research at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, contends that the gaps on core issues - boundaries, Jerusalem, refugees, water resources, and security arrangements - had hardly been narrowed, let alone overcome. He questions whether the leadership on either side - with Olmert presiding over a shaky coalition and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas contending with the radical Islamists of Hamas who control the Gaza Strip - have the ability to "take the body politic by the scruff of the neck and shake...
...Israeli side, Prime Minister Olmert has to persuade his voters that they are not being played for suckers. "[Olmert] doesn't feel that he'll be able to respond persuasively to the question 'What's in it for us?'" Heller maintains. "The obvious answer is peace and security, but he has to convince Israelis that a deal is a real deal. He's got to have an authoritative Palestinian leadership signing on the back of the check: 'This is the end. There are no further claims.' Abbas may be inclined to go in that direction, but he doesn't speak...
...Annapolis peace talks last month, the Israeli team - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak - didn't have high expectations for making headway on the Palestinian issue, but they were confident of pressing their case on Iran to a receptive White House. Instead, Barak was taken aside by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and told that new intelligence persuaded the Americans that Iran wasn't such a big threat after...
...results of Annapolis, the main players at the summit vowed that negotiations would be off to a quick start. But no sooner did Olmert and Abbas fly back in the Middle East than they began issuing contradictory statements. Olmert said that the "end of 2008" for a final solution was actually a flexible deadline; meanwhile, Abbas refused to accept Olmert's declaration that Israel was "a Jewish state," since to do otherwise might take away the right of 4.5 million Palestinian refugees who are still demanding their right to return to their original homes, vacated...