Word: olmert
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...share power with Hamas, along with other Palestinian parties and independents, was "unacceptable to the U.S. or Israel." The Palestinian leader then took the offensive, witnesses say, and demanded to know why, after Rice publicly said she would reserve judgment on the new Palestinian government, President Bush telephoned Olmert to tell him that the U.S would never recognize the new cabinet. Rice dodged the subject, say Abbas aides, and talked only about expanding "political horizons." ("If she didn't know about Bush's phone call, she should resign," Abbas told aides later. "She's lost credibility.") Witnesses say that Abbas...
...nobody among the Palestinians capable of stopping terrorist attacks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the summit aimed at re-starting Middle East peace talks as "a big, big failure." But according to Abbas aides, the meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert almost never took place...
...most positive outcome of the summit is that Rice persuaded Olmert and Abbas to keep talking. But unless the three try harder next time, the U.S.-sponsored Road Map for Peace will lead in circles, going nowhere...
...talks with U.S. diplomats, they argue that the Saudi-brokered accord that helped forge the unity government gives Abbas some room to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians - including Hamas - and the Israelis and Americans should take him up on that. The Arab diplomats also stress that if Olmert is prepared to make major concessions, such as a withdrawal from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it could lay the groundwork for a lasting peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors...
...However, neither Olmert nor Abbas are in a talkative mood - not for a while. Olmert's popularity is scraping the floor at 14%, and persuading Israelis that he should negotiate with a new Palestinian government containing Hamas - terrorists, in most Israelis' eyes - will be a hard sell. Meanwhile, Abbas has been telling Rice's aides, shuttling back and forth between Jerusalem to Ramallah in armored cars, that "he wants something to sell to the Palestinian people" before he will begin discussing the deeper issues of co-existence between Palestinians and Israelis. For starters, Abbas wants Olmert to return an estimated...