By Xinhua
Jerusalem : Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that it was a disgrace that Israel did not take actions on unauthorized West Bank outposts, an agreed-on obligation in the Roadmap peace plan, according to local media.
At the weekly cabinet meeting, Olmert briefed the ministers on the round of talks he held with U.S. President George W. Bush during his recent visit to Israel, saying the two key issues discussed were the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the Iranian nuclear threat.
“Bush reiterated the U.S.’s full commitment to ensuring that no agreement will be carried out on the ground before the Roadmap is implemented in full, including all of the clauses regarding Israel’s security, both in Gaza and in the West Bank,” the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, Olmert also said despite the National Intelligence Estimate report by U.S. intelligent agencies, Iran has been and will continue to be a threat, and Israel must work toward “lifting this threat”.
The prime minister said that although Bush’s second term as president has entered its final year, the stance that the U.S. will take during this period, especially with regard to issues concerning Israel’s security, will have tremendous significance and gravity.
Under the U.S.-backed Roadmap peace plan of 2003, Israel promised to take down about two dozen of the outposts that Jewish settlers had erected across the West Bank in an attempt to prevent land from being ceded to the Palestinians.
There are more than 100 of the outposts, which range from a single hilltop trailer to thriving communities numbering dozens of families. The Roadmap obliges Israel to take down those erected after March 2003, the Ha’aretz report said. Israel has repeatedly said it intends to move against the outposts, but no serious action has been taken.
In additional to Israel’s Roadmap commitment to halt settlement construction and dismantle outposts, the Palestinians are required in the first stage to boost their security forces to fight terror.