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Friday December 7, 2007

Shorts: Mideast

Israelis glum on Annapolis

As many as half of Israelis think the Annapolis peace summit was a failure.

A Yediot Achronot survey published last week found that 50 percent of Israelis classified Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s efforts to jump-start peace talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas under U.S. auspices last week as a “failure.” Eighteen percent of the respondents called the conference in the Maryland capital a success.

A poll in Ha’aretz had similar figures for opinions on whether Annapolis failed or succeeded — 42 percent versus 17 percent. — jta

Israel blasted for war coverage

Israel should have let more journalists embed with its forces during the Second Lebanon War, its former chief military spokeswoman said.

Miri Regev’s testimony was published this week by the Winograd Commission looking into the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Had they been allowed to enter, the reporters would have informed the public of the IDF’s achievements, of the battles, and would have fostered a sense of solidarity,” Regev said. — jta

Police clear Olmert in bank case

Israeli police recommended against prosecuting Ehud Olmert for alleged corruption.

Olmert was accused of manipulating the privatization of Bank Leumi in 2005 to help a friend. He was the industry and trade minister at the time.

He is also under investigation for allegedly receiving a steep discount on the purchase of a Jerusalem home and also allegedly arranging a state stipend for a former colleague. Both of those cases also predate his election as prime minister in 2006. — jta

Kissinger: Israel swiped nuke fuel

Henry Kissinger told President Nixon that he suspected Israel stole fissile material from the United States, according to declassified documents released last week by the Nixon Presidential Library and the National Archives.

“This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived us and may even have stolen from us,” the president’s national security adviser wrote in a memorandum in July 1969.

Israel does not acknowledge having a nuclear weapons program. Most accounts, however, say that fissile material for the weapons originally was obtained from France. — jta

Abbas: Israel not a Jewish state

Mahmoud Abbas reiterated the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“The Palestinians do not accept the formula that the state of Israel is a Jewish state,” the Palestinian Authority president said Dec. 1 after visiting Cairo on his way home from the Annapolis peace conference.“We say that Israel exists, and in Israel there are Jews and there are those who are not Jews.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that coexistence with a future Palestinian state will only be possible if it acknowledges Israel as the Jewish homeland.

Despite their ideological differences, the two sides expect to resume peace talks Wednesday, Dec. 12. — jta

Israel to build homes in East Jerusalem

Israel said this week it is seeking bids to build more than 300 new homes in Har Homa, a disputed East Jerusalem neighborhood, drawing Palestinian condemnation.

“This is undermining Annapolis,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, referring to last week’s U.S.-hosted summit, where Israel and the Palestinians relaunched peace talks. — ap

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