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Olmert in Kiryat Shmona
Photo: Avihu Shapira
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Recent Jerusalem terror attack
Photo: Gil Yohanan

Olmert: Jerusalem attacks unpreventable

Outgoing prime minister hints at division of capital as only strategy that may halt current onslaught of terror attacks. 'Tell Arabs: You live in your neighborhoods, stay out of ours,' he offers

Following a fourth terror attack carried out in Jerusalem by a resident of the eastern part of the capital, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that it was becoming increasingly difficult to prevent these attacks from taking place.

 

"Whoever talks in grandiose and bombastic slogans about Jerusalem should remember that there is no simple way to avoid this phenomenon, unless we tell the Arabs in the Arab neighborhoods: You live in your neighborhoods and stay out of ours," the resigning prime minister said, hinting at the possibility of dividing the city.

 

Olmert, on an official visit to Kiryat Shmona, also spoke about the strategy of razing terrorists' homes. "There is no simple solution to the issue of razing homes, the defense minister and I have been discussing this issue for two months already," he said.

 

He added that he had warned against the occurrence of the most recent attack. "I said we have to remember that in a city with 270,000 Arab residents, able to move freely throughout the city with yellow license plates – it wouldn't be a tractor or a bulldozer, but a private vehicle," he said.

 

"No defense establishment can possibly predict a man going to sleep and receiving a visit from Allah, getting into a private vehicle, seeing a group of people and crashing into them," the prime minister said.

 

Regarding negotiations with Syria Olmert explained that "in the past we feared the Syrian army advancing from the Golan Heights into the valley, but today a few kilometers don't really matter. What matters to northern security is our ability to deter, and what threatens us today is located hundreds of kilometers from here."

 

He added that "if peace is achieved, we won’t be the only ones making concessions… We will create a new reality in which concessions will be met by concessions, achievements by achievements, and profit by profit. If we are to achieve peace with our neighbors it cannot depend solely on us."

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.23.08, 19:08
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