Olmert gets official nod to form Israeli government

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
received the formal nod on Thursday to form a government, which
he pledged would set Israel’s permanent borders within four
years with or without Palestinian agreement.

“I have the honor to announce that I have decided to ask
member of parliament Ehud Olmert to form the government,”
President Moshe Katsav said at a ceremony with the Kadima party
leader.

Olmert, whose centrist party came first in last week’s
election with 29 seats in the 120-member parliament, will have
up to 42 days to put together a governing coalition.

“I hope to form a government, which will have the broadest
possible support, as quickly as possible,” Olmert said,
accepting the nomination.

The center-left Labor Party led by former trade union chief
Amir Peretz has already agreed to a political partnership with
Kadima. Kadima will now try to woo a smattering of smaller
parties and set government guidelines.

Olmert has proposed removing Jewish settlers from swathes
of the occupied West Bank in the continued absence of peace
talks with the Palestinians. At the ceremony, Olmert promised
to make “a serious and genuine attempt” to revive peacemaking.

But he reiterated he wanted to reach “an understanding”
with the United States and other countries on working “toward
the fixing of the permanent border lines even without an
agreement.”

Under Olmert’s “convergence plan,” Israel would keep major
settlement blocs and trace its final frontier by 2010 along a
barrier it is building in the West Bank, where 240,000 Israelis
live among 2.4 million Palestinians.

Palestinians condemn such a move, saying it would annex
land and deny the viable state they seek in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

With a new Palestinian government led by the Islamic
militant group in Hamas in place, the prospect that peacemaking
could be resumed soon seems unlikely.

DETENTION

In a sign of Israel’s tough stance toward Hamas, which
advocates its destruction, Israeli security forces detained
Palestinian cabinet minister Khaled Abu Araf at a roadblock in
the occupied West Bank. He was released five hours later.

“The Hamas minister was detained at about 9 a.m. (0600
GMT). He was not questioned at any point and was released at 2
p.m. (1100 GMT),” an army spokesman said. “He was held because
he is not allowed to enter these areas.”

Security officials quoted by the Haaretz Web site said
Araf, an independent, was taken into custody because as the
holder of an Israeli identity card, he is banned by Israel from
areas administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Abu Araf can carry an Israeli ID because he lives in Arab
East Jerusalem, which Israel captured and annexed in the 1967
Middle East war in a move that is not recognized
internationally.

Hamas held its first cabinet meeting on Wednesday following
its victory in the January 25 Palestinian election.

Israel says it cannot consider dealing with Hamas until the
group recognizes the Jewish state, renounces violence and
accepts prior interim Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

“The Occupation is continuing the escalation to undermine
the work of the new government,” Palestinian cabinet spokesman
Ghazi Hamad said in Gaza, using Hamas’s term for Israel.

“The arrest of a cabinet minister proves the falseness of
Israel’s arguments that it seeks peace,” Hamad said.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)