Word: olmert
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...Shalit's captors want the Israeli government to exchange hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the Israeli soldier. On Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would release 250 prisoners from the Fatah group - but none from Hamas...
...Arab regimes is to press for Hamas to join a new Palestinian unity government along with Abbas's Fatah party. Explains a senior Arab official, the decision to hold a meeting between Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "is a diplomatic warning to Hamas: If you try to strip Abbas's authority, think twice. We'll throw all our support to Abbas and work against...
Privately, Arab leaders are steering some of the blame for the Palestinian political meltdown towards the Bush Administration and Olmert's government. They say the U.S. and Israel have effectively encouraged Hamas and Fatah to resume their bloody power struggle, which resulted in Hamas's armed takeover of Gaza and the collapse of the three-month-old Palestinian national unity government. First, Arab sources say, despite a symbolic resumption of the peace process in January, neither the U.S. or Israel provided any tangible political or financial support to bolster Abbas's increasingly shaky leadership against Hamas's growing political...
Arab diplomats say that besides warning Hamas, their aim at the summit is to lobby Olmert to provide help Abbas in the short term by releasing Palestinian money and easing Israeli security in Fatah-controlled areas, and in the long term by moving toward acceptance of the 2002 peace initiative recently relaunched by the Arab League. Meanwhile, they say, once passions have cooled down, their next move is to encourage Hamas and Fatah to restore their governing partnership. "We will try everything," an Arab diplomat explains. "None of us agrees with Hamas. But they are a political fact that...
Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program director of the International Crisis Group, agrees with that approach, warning that, even as they try to help Abbas, neither Israel nor the international community should aim at dividing the Palestinians. Olmert's move Sunday to release funds and improve life in the Palestinian territories, says Malley, a former Middle East advisor in the Clinton White House, is "late, but absolutely welcome, though it should be done with eyes open, not to marginalize or defeat Hamas...