OLMERT TO START TALKS MAYBE

Prodi Says Lebanon Force May Help Revive Mideast Peace Process
By Andrew Davis and Flavia Rotondi

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations effort to enforce the cease-fire in Lebanon could aid in bringing stability to the region and help the European Union revive the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said. Some of the 2,500 Italian soldiers being sent to Lebanon to police the truce between Israel and the Hezbollah militia began arriving Sept 2. Italy, which has joint command of the UN force with the French, contributed the largest contingent. The situation in Lebanon changes the spirit in the Middle East,' Prodi said in an interview in Cernobbio, Italy yesterday. There is a new role for the United Nations and a new role for Europe, and that can help unblock the peace process with the Palestinians, but first we must secure the peace in Lebanon.The United States-backed peace plan known as the roadmap has stalled, and violence between Israel and the Palestinians has escalated since March when Hamas, which Israel and the U.S. consider a terrorist group, took control of the Palestinian government after winning a majority in parliament. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on a visit to Rome Aug. 31 that Italy had an important role to play in bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

The kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hamas militants in June triggered the first extensive round of hostilities since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in September, ending 38 years of occupation. The UN estimates that more than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, while Israel says 300 rockets have been fired into Israeli territory. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Israel on Aug. 30 to ease its blockade of Gaza, which was tightened after the abduction of the soldier in June. To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Davis in Rome at abdavis@bloomberg.net.

PM: Israel must renew Palestinian talksBy AMY TEIBEL
Associated Press Writer Sept. 5,2006, 1:16AM

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signaled a need Monday to pursue talks with the Palestinians, an official said, apparently edging away from a unilateral West Bank pullback plan that swept him to power in March.Olmert's government also issued bids to build 700 homes in major settlements in the West Bank its largest settlement construction project since taking office in May.There have been no official contacts between Israel and the Palestinians since the militant Hamas group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.But with Israel's recent war against Hezbollah guerrillas putting a chill on Olmert's program to uproot Jewish settlements and unilaterally draw Israel's border with the West Bank the Israeli leader again broached the idea of talks.

We have no more urgent problem than that of the Palestinians,Olmert told parliament's influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, a meeting participant said.Government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Israel had no preconditions for a meeting between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah Party, who favors peace talks with the Israelis.Palestinian lawmaker Saeb Erekat, an Abbas ally, said the president, known as Abu Mazen, was prepared to talk. If Mr. Olmert says there are no conditions for a meeting, he knows that Abu Mazen stands ready for such a meeting,Erekat said.Olmert's Kadima Party had pledged large-scale Israeli pullbacks in the West Bank, but Olmert shelved that plan after the war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, leaving the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank up in the air.

Asked where the West Bank pullback plan was going, Olmert told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, What I advocated several months ago has changed,according to the meeting participant.Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio on Tuesday that the government has not completely abandoned the idea. The plan is not dead, it's been postponed,he said. It's not a priority right now. ... The plan has been put on the shelf.

Construction and Housing Ministry spokesman Kobi Bleich confirmed that the bids to build 700 homes in the Maaleh Adumim and Betar Illit settlements both outside Jerusalem represent the Olmert government's largest settlement construction project since taking office.The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, as part of a future state. Erekat said the planned expansion of Maaleh Adumim and Betar Illit undermined efforts to revive peacemaking.Olmert's appearance before the committee was his first since the Lebanon war ended three weeks ago, and he used the occasion to deliver a harsh warning to Syria, a patron of Hezbollah and Palestinian militants. If forced into war with Syria, Israel will strike more harshly than it did in Lebanon, the participant quoted him as saying.More than 850 Lebanese were killed during the fighting, most of them civilians. The battles also left 159 Israelis dead, including 39 civilians hit by Hezbollah rockets in Israel's northern cities.

Three weeks after a cease-fire ended the war, Israel has a special legal team preparing to provide protection for government officials and army officers who could face related war crimes charges abroad.There have been unsuccessful efforts in Europe in the past to try Israeli politicians and army officers on war crimes charges over other conflicts.Amnesty International recently accused Israel of war crimes in the Lebanese war, but Israel has said all of its actions were legal, accusing Hezbollah of hiding among civilians in Lebanon and deliberately targeting Israeli civilians in rocket attacks.