Ehud Olmert - Prime Minister - Seeks Peace at Annapolis

Seeks Peace At Annapolis

Olmert welcomed the Arab League's 2007 re-endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative. Olmert wrote in The Guardian newspaper that Israel was ready to make "painful concessions" to achieve peace with the Palestinians. "I take the offer of full normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously; and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner. Working with our Jordanian and Egyptian partners, and hopefully other Arab states, we must pursue a comprehensive peace with energy and vision.... But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum."

On 4 November 2007, he declared Israel's intention to negotiate with the Palestinians about all issues, stating, "Annapolis will be the jumping-off point for continued serious and in-depth negotiations, which will not avoid any issue or ignore any division that has clouded our relations with the Palestinian people for many years." On 29 November 2007, he warned of the end of Israel in case a two-state solution is not eventually found for the Israeli–Palestinian dispute. "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished", Olmert said on the last day of the Annapolis Conference. "The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us", Olmert said, "because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents".

During the talks, Olmert agreed that Israel would share Jerusalem as the joint capital of Israel and a Palestinian state and hand over its holy sites to a multinational committee, land swaps that would allow Israel to keep its major settlement blocs in the West Bank, the construction of a tunnel connecting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and a demilitarized Palestinian state with an American-led international security force stationed on the Palestinian–Jordanian border. Both sides disagreed over how much land would be exchanged in the swaps, with Olmert demanding at least 5.9% of the West Bank and Abbas offering 1.9%. According to the "Palestine Papers," Israel and the Palestinians agreed that Israel would accept 10,000 refugees. In his memoirs, Olmert wrote that he agreed Israel would generously compensate the remaining refugees. Olmert later stated that U.S. President George W. Bush offered to accept another 100,000 refugees as American citizens if a peace agreement was signed. However, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in her memoirs that the Palestinians demanded they be allowed to negotiate additional "returns" to Israel following a peace agreement, insisting that the right of return was a matter of individual choice that would have to apply to every refugee. In his memoirs, Olmert claimed that he and Abbas were very close to an agreement, but Abbas' hesitation, Olmert's legal troubles, and the Gaza War caused the talks to end. President Bush wrote in his memoirs that the talks broke down when Olmert announced that he would resign from office, and Abbas refused to finalize an agreement or continue the talks on the grounds that he did not want to sign a peace deal with a prime minister on his way out of office.

During at least two meetings, Olmert made a secret promise to Abbas: Once a prisoner exchange deal for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was finalized with Hamas, Israel would bolster Abbas' government by releasing Fatah prisoners. After a prisoner exchange deal was agreed upon in 2011 under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Olmert's successor, Palestinian officials demanded that Netanyahu live up to Olmert's promise and release Fatah prisoners.