Israel and peace
As if to give a twist to the peace move by US President Bush, a hawkish faction in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition, Yisrael Beiteinu's 11 lawmakers pulled out of the government on 16 January, leaving Olmert with a majority of 67 in the 120-seat parliament. This unexpected step has weakened Olmert at a time when he needs broad support to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year. The ruling coalition still has the majority in the House. "Negotiations on the basis of land for peace is a fatal mistake," Avigdor Lieberman, head of the faction, told a news conference. However, Ruhama Avraham, a member of Olmert's Kadima Party, said the government would overcome this. Olmert had tried to persuade Lieberman to stay in the government in a meeting with him on Tuesday. But Yisrael Beiteinu decided in a meeting to leave, Lieberman said. "Nothing will come of these negotiations," he declared.
Earlier, premier Ehud Barrack also had made similar efforts to bring peace to Israel, but he was “outsmarted” by others. Lieberman's decision came just days after Palestinian and Israeli negotiators began tackling the core issues of their conflict final borders, sovereignty over disputed Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees who lost homes in Israel during the war that broke out following the Jewish state's creation in 1948. He had repeatedly threatened to leave the government if these issues were broached. "If we pull back to the 1967 borders, everyone should ask himself, what will happen the following day," Lieberman said. He is pessimistic about results, believes that nothing would change in the region. "Will the conflict stop, will the terror stop? Nothing will change." The ultra-Orthodox Shas Party with 12 lawmakers has also threatened to leave if Israel agrees to any compromise over Jerusalem, whose eastern sector Israel captured in the 1967 Mid-east war.
Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Israelis and Palestinians re-launched talks after seven years of violence at a U.S.-sponsored Mid-east conference in November. The leaders pledged to try to reach an agreement before President Bush leaves office a year from now. This is no surprise to the world, knowing the way Israeli leaders behave in groups in order to sabotage any peace move from any quarters. But since Bush has sworn by his resolve to establish a Palestine State before he steps down from the White House, now it has to be seen what he would do next to make the revolting Israeli leaders see reason to support his proposal for good neighbourly relations and peaceful co-existence in the region.
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