Kadima tries to muddy the waters

Party sending out mixed messages regarding future withdrawals

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By Ryan Jones
January 20, 2006

Apparently concerned that public perception of Kadima as being dedicated to relinquishing Judea and Samaria at all costs could hurt the party come election time, subordinates to Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are now sending mixed signals regarding future withdrawals.

Following Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip last summer, public opinion polls showed the vast majority of Israelis would not support any further unilateral withdrawals, and most were unwilling to surrender any more land to the ?Palestinians? even within the framework of a peace deal.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post published Friday, Kadima Knesset candidate and former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Avi Dichter tried to assure Israelis his party is of like mind.

?We're not going to try to end the problem without solving it. We're not going to withdraw from the West Bank unilaterally just because it was done in Gaza,? Dichter said.

But in an earlier interview with the Post, Olmert said the exact opposite.

?Israel will need to carry out a large-scale withdrawal from the West Bank after disengagement, whether or not a viable peace partner emerges on the Palestinian side,? Olmert stated.

Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party is using that quote, among others, in its own election campaign in order to warn voters to the danger of a Kadima victory in the March 28 poll.

Likud's latest campaign slogan reads: ?Kadima ('forward' in Hebrew) to the 1967 borders?

On Wednesday, elder statesman and Olmert-backer Shimon Peres confirmed Kadima will champion the surrender of most of Israel's biblical heartland, without reciprocation if necessary, in its quest for ?peace.?

Peres called this baffling strategy ?Sharon's legacy.?

He said no time will be wasted in implementing it if and when Olmert is officially installed as prime minister.

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