BICOM

In a series of interviews on Channel Ten, Israel’s former-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas discussed the details of Olmert’s peace offer in 2008 and Abbas’s decision not to accept it.

The interviews show Abbas himself detailing for the first time the extent of the offer which Olmert made. The two leaders are thought to have met on dozens of occasions to discuss a deal. Olmert said that he offered a near total withdrawal from the West Bank, proposing to maintain control over just 6.3 per cent of the territory (the settlement blocs of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Ma’aleh Adumim) in return for a land swap in Israeli territory the equivalent of 5.8 per cent of the West Bank. In addition, Olmert proposed a tunnel linking the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and a withdrawal from Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem with the Old City coming under international control.

In the Channel Ten interview, Olmert said “I told him, ‘Remember my words, it will be 50 years before there will be another Israeli prime minister that will offer you what I am offering you now. Don’t miss this opportunity.”

The interviewer Raviv Drucker asked Abbas, “In the map that Olmert presented you, Israel would annex 6.3 percent [of the West Bank] and compensate the Palestinians with 5.8 percent [taken from pre-1967 Israel]. What did you propose in return?” Abbas replied that he “rejected it out of hand.” Asked why he did so, Abbas explained “He [Olmert] said to me, “Here’s a map. See it? That’s all.” I respected his decision not to give me the map. But how can we sign something that hasn’t been given us, that hasn’t been discussed?”

Talks continued for a short while, but Olmert became embroiled in corruption allegations which eventually resulted in a six-year prison sentence. Abbas told Channel Ten, “I feel if we had continued four to five months, we could have concluded the issues.”