Shifting ground to seek peace
Abraham Rabinovich; 4/10/08
As a young member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament), Ehud Olmert voted against Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt in 1979, defying his party leader, prime minister Menahem Begin. As mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003, he provocatively pushed the construction of housing for right-wing Jewish settlers in the heart of Arab neighbourhoods. This week, as he prepared to step down as Israel’s Prime Minister, Olmert rejected the right-wing views he long championed and asserted that total, or near total, withdrawal from Palestinian and Syrian territory captured in the 1967 Six-Day War was the only rational choice for the nation. “We have to make a decision, one that goes against all our instincts, against our collective memory, against the prayers of the Jewish people for 2000 years,” he said in a farewell interview with the newspaper Yediot Achronot. Olmert formally submitted his resignation as prime minister last week in the wake of police investigations into corruption charges against him but continues in office until a successor is chosen.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24441292-28737,00.html