WHICH IS RIGHT?

by RAY FLEMING
THE Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert visited London to get Britain's support for his plan to take arbitrary action on establishing Israel's new borders in the West Bank if he is unable to negotiate an agreement on them with the Palestinian Authority. Did he get the support he was looking for? According to a The Times headline he did: “Blair risks Arab anger by backing Israeli plan to impose new border.” But The Guardian thought differently: “Blair refuses to back Olmert's West Bank plan.” What was the truth? As a matter of fact, I think this newspaper may have got closest to it with its front page headline: “Blair urges push for Middle East peace”. Mr Olmert may well be satisfied with the lack of clarity he has created as to his intentions. The impression he gives is that he would prefer to be left to make his own unilateral decisions about Israel's borders when he judges the time to be right. He speaks vaguely about withdrawing Israeli settlements from “most of” the West Bank but omits to make clear that he is talking about small outposts and that under his plans the large West Bank setttlements will be extended to the point that a viable Palestinian state will be made impossible. Mr Olmert's statement that he will not tolerate the status quo overlooks the fact that he is not the only interested party in the solution of the Israel/Palestinian problem.