DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 3, 2008, 10:36 PM (GMT+02:00) A handshake behind Israel's back US president George W. Bush went over Israel’s head last week and promised Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to hand on to his successor as done deals the issues covered in the talks Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni held with Palestinian leaders, DEBKAfile’s Washington sources reveal. Olmert and Livni, who is Kadima’s nominee for prime minister, have told the Israeli public that nothing had been agreed in the series of talks they held with Abbas and senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia from last year. No document or even working paper was signed to confirm claims by Olmert that Israel must give up East Jerusalem, withdraw from the West Bank except for once percent of the territory and accept tens of thousands of Palestinian 1948 refugees. If agreed – which they were not - these issues are highly problematical and would need to seek approval Israel’s democratically-elected institutions. But the US president has taken it upon himself to decide that the issues aired and left pending will henceforth be deemed by the US presidency closed between the parties. He will recommend this principle to the next administration in the belief that it will jump the Israel-Palestinian negotiating process forward toward a final accord in 2009. President Bush also promised Abbas the Palestinians would not be held accountable for the impasse reached by the talks this year. The Palestinians are trumpeting Bush’s decision as a milestone on the road to achieving their goals. Abbas called Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan to give them the glad tidings. It may be recalled that Bush was the first US president ever to back the Palestinian demand for independence and a “two-state solution” of the conflict. DEBKAfile’s political sources say Bush has laid down a perilous precedent by hijacking Israel’s prerogative for accepting or rejecting Palestinian demands and trampling the authority of its elected institutions. If this precedent is applied to Israel’s indirect talks with Syria, it will be enough for Damascus to put the question of Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan on the table for it to be counted as agreed. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited Israel last month to try obtain a signed document summing up areas of accord to burnish the Bush foreign policy record before he left the White House. However, she was informed that the process had not advanced that far.
Bush will treat as done deals key issues only broached in Israel-Palestinian talks
October 3, 2008, 10:36 PM (GMT+02:00)
A handshake behind Israel's back
US president George W. Bush went over Israel’s head last week and promised Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to hand on to his successor as done deals the issues covered in the talks Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni held with Palestinian leaders, DEBKAfile’s Washington sources reveal.
Olmert and Livni, who is Kadima’s nominee for prime minister, have told the Israeli public that nothing had been agreed in the talks. No document was signed to confirm claims by Olmert that Israel must give up East Jerusalem, withdraw from the West Bank except for once percent of the territory and accept tens of thousands of Palestinian 1948 refugees.
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US House majority approves revised $700 bn bailout bill 263:171
October 3, 2008, 8:35 PM (GMT+02:00)
The House of Representatives voted 263 votes to 171 to approve the $700 bn bailout bill Friday, Oct. 3, after it was passed by the Senate. Congress's initial rejection of the measure Monday sent US and global stocks into free fall.
The package includes amendments added by the Senate which provides a one-year increase in federal insurance for deposits of $250,000 instead of $100,000 to help small businesses weather the credit crisis as well as tax breaks. The support in both houses was bipartisan and sponsored by the two presidential nominees Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.
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