Monday, September 03, 2007

Still More:Israel will be bound, PA will not!

Kadima MK Elkin: Agreement Won't Bind PA, but Will Bind Us Ze'ev Elkin and other Kadima Members of Knesset (MKs) say Prime Minister Olmert's talks with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas bypass the Kadima party's mandate, and will obligate and endanger Israel in the future.

By popular demand within his party, Kadima chairman PM Ehud Olmert will explain to the senior party leadership what concessions he is planning to agree to in his talks with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas. He will deliver a speech to this effect on Sept. 20.

Well-founded rumors abound that Olmert has agreed, in principle, to hand over all of Judea and Samaria, or its equivalent in land area, to the PA in exchange for a full peace treaty. Although no date has been set for the giveaway, Knesset Members within Olmert's party say the very consent to do so is dangerous.

"I am very skeptical about the whole thing," MK Elkin told Arutz-7. "We don't know all the details, but even as an agreement of principles it is very dangerous. It is not set to be carried out right now, true, but it is something that will obligate us a long time from now, and will bring strong international pressure upon us. Israeli governments are obligated to commitments made by previous governments - while on the other side, our Palestinian partner is very weak, Abu Mazen is not even planning to run again for office, and the PA doesn't believe in fulfilling previous governments' obligations, as we saw when Hamas took over in Gaza."

"If we were able to annex territory, or to receive permanent borders, there might be something to talk about," continued Elkin, a resident of Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion. "But all that's happening now is that we're promising to give away land without receiving anything in return."

"In short," concluded MK Elkin, "this agreement will obligate us, but not them."

Among other Kadima MKs who demand, together with Elkin, that Olmert share with them the status of the talks are David Tal, Marina Solodkin, Shai Hermesh, Otniel Shneller, and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter. Some of them warn that if Olmert goes ahead without receiving party support, a party split could result. Other party MKs who oppose Olmert's approach are keeping a low profile for the moment, Haaretz reports.

MK Hermesh, a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the western Negev's Gaza border, is strongly opposed to Olmert's intention to give parts of the Negev to the PA, in place of land in Judea and Samaria.

Kadima MKs from both sides of the political spectrum recall at least two cases in recent Israeli political history in which a Prime Minister angered his own party's MKs by running ahead with diplomatic plans without their knowledge or approval. Minister Chaim Ramon, a good friend of Olmert, said that the "Ehud Barak story of 2000" will not repeat itself, and that Olmert will make sure to involve his party in his diplomatic plans.

Other MKs remembered Ariel Sharon's Disengagement plan that led to a split in the Likud and the formation of the Kadima party. MK Elkin said, however, that the situation is not the same: "The Disengagement was in total opposition to the Likud's platform, ideology, and even a party referendum - whereas Kadima's platform does call for concessions and a final-status agreement, though in a much more concrete form than Olmert is agreeing to."

Knesset Members to Debate the Issue in Special Session
The Knesset will hold, at the request of the required amount of 25 MKs, a special mid-recess Knesset session on Tuesday on the matter of the final-status diplomatic negotiations being waged by Prime Minister Olmert with the PA. The session will also concentrate on the anti-religious and even anti-Zionist policies of Education Minister Yuli Tamir of Kadima, such as her cutback on religious girls teaching in secular schools and her decision to include the Arab version of the War of Independence in school books.

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