Newsmaker

Ehud Olmert close to succeed PM Sharon

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-12 08:29

TRIAL BALLOON

In late 2003, Olmert prepared for what was to become a major policy shift by floating a trial balloon for Israel's go-it-alone Gaza pullout, completed last September.

In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest newspaper, Olmert raised the possibility of "a comprehensive unilateral move" to define the country's borders.

He cautioned that a high Palestinian birthrate meant Arabs would eventually outnumber Jews in Israeli-held areas between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea unless Israel gave up much of the land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Before Sharon became ill, Olmert publicly held out the possibility of further unilateral withdrawals, from occupied West Bank land that Palestinians want for a state.

Sharon had been running in the March election on a platform of ending conflict with the Palestinians, a move towards peace that he said would entail "painful concessions" by Israel.

At the same time, Sharon pledged to hold on to large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank in any future peace deal with the Palestinians. But he also made clear the price to pay would be the relinquishing of smaller enclaves.

Olmert was among the first to follow Sharon into Kadima in the face of a rightist rebellion in the Likud over the Gaza pullout, a withdrawal Israeli opponents saw as capitulation to Palestinian violence.

Since taking over from the ailing Sharon, Olmert, who also holds the finance portfolio, has projected an image of business as usual, publicly hailing what he described as the stability of Israel's political system, economy and currency.

Olmert seems likely to receive the nod of other Kadima cabinet members to lead the party into the election. He has already been endorsed by veteran statesman Shimon Peres, who recently abandoned the Labour Party for Kadima.

Olmert lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Aliza, an art enthusiast. They have four children.