Word: olmert
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...right. The Israeli offensive sent a message not just to the militants holding Shalit but also to the Palestinian leadership, which Israel accuses of abetting rising violence against Israeli soldiers and citizens. A senior Israeli security official says some members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government believe the crisis is an opportunity to smash the authority of Hamas, the militant organization that won control of the Palestinian Authority in elections earlier this year. That aim became evident when Israeli forces arrested eight Palestinian Cabinet ministers and 40 Hamas parliamentarians in the West Bank, who may be charged with membership...
...teeming city of refugee camps of some 250,000 people. Three separate groups claimed responsibility for the abduction, including the military wing of Hamas, which Israel charged was acting on the directions of Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas supremo in Damascus (see box). Two days into the Gaza incursion, Olmert ordered Israeli forces to halt their advance to allow for a mediation push by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Friday, Mubarak claimed that Hamas had agreed to release Shalit, but Shalit's captors demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, which Israel refused. Haniya's spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, told TIME...
That, in part, explains the ardor of the Israelis' effort to find Shalit. Olmert, who took office after Ariel Sharon's stroke in January, had little choice but to go into Gaza, given the Israeli public's deep identification with the army, in which most Israeli citizens have served. Lacking any counterpart on the Palestinian side that it trusts, Israel has taken a "shake the trees" approach, putting as much pressure as possible on the government and civilian population in the hopes that someone would turn on Hamas. But it's difficult to see how some Israeli tactics, particularly...
...Ironically, although Ariel Sharon and Olmert's strategy of unilateral withdrawal was specifically designed to bypass the elected Palestinian leadership, it has given an effective veto power to a handful of militants who, by their violent actions, are able to force Israel to reverse itself. The events of recent weeks has exposed the emptiness of the promise that unilateral withdrawals would free Israelis of the moral burden of occupation and make them safer behind a high wall. No wonder Israeli media are reporting that the violence in Gaza has turned Israelis against Olmert's plans for further pullouts from...
...Even as his focus in the days and weeks ahead is on immediate military action, in the long term Olmert's choices are unpalatable: He can heed right-wingers such as former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and simply reoccupy Gaza, or he can follow the advice of those, like his Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who insist that Israel's security ultimately requires a peace agreement with the Palestinians. The latter, of course, means dealing with a credible Palestinian government - and for the foreseeable future, Hamas would likely be the leading element of such a government. As remote as the possibility...