Mr Olmert, who is strongly favoured to win a general election in three weeks, told the Jerusalem Post that by 2010 he intended to "get to Israel's permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population and preserve a large and stable Jewish majority in Israel".

He did not specify the route of the new frontier, which he said would be decided after an "internal dialogue inside Israel" and consultations with Israel's foreign allies. But he repeated his intention to annex the main settlement blocks in the West Bank and retain control of the Jordan river area "as a security border", resulting in a Palestinian state entirely surrounded by territory under Israeli control.

Support for Mr Olmert's Kadima party, launched last year by Ariel Sharon before he went into a coma two months ago, has slipped in recent weeks amid corruption allegations and following the Hamas landslide in the Palestinian elections. But with opinion polls still giving Kadima a commanding lead in the parliament, public support for a withdrawal from large parts of the West Bank while holding on to the main settlements remains high.

The plan outlined by Mr Olmert would require the removal of about 60,000 Israelis from settlements deeper inside the West Bank but leave about 350,000 in the main blocks and East Jerusalem.

Mr Olmert said he would give Hamas a "reasonable" amount of time to meet demands to recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept existing agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority (PA). "We will wait, but I don't intend to wait forever," he said. "If after a reasonable time passes it becomes clear that the PA is not willing to accept these principles, we will need to begin to act."

Mr Olmert also said he had no plans to meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas because he was not prepared to draw "artificial distinctions" between the Palestinian leader and a Hamas government. "The Palestinian Authority is one authority, the minute the dominant force in the PA is Hamas, then why [meet]?" he said.

The Palestinians' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told Reuters that unilaterally imposing a border would not bring peace. "The road to peace and security in the region is not through unilateralism, the building of walls and settlements, but rather through the resumption of permanent status negotiations," he said.

Olmert also threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas if he is involved in terrorism.

Olmert, facing elections March 28, said the current wall, still under construction after more than three years, is a "security fence." The new one would be Israel's border with the West Bank, he said. He told the paper he would enter into dialogue with Jewish settler leaders to try and persuade them to agree to the new line, moving settlers from outlying areas into settlement blocs he plans to incorporate into Israel.

In interviews published in other papers Thursday, Olmert said he would keep Gush Etzion and Maaleh Adumim near Jerusalem and Ariel, deep in the West Bank, as well as maintaining control over the Jordan River Valley, the line between Jordan and the West Bank.

He also said he would link Maaleh Adumim, the largest West Bank settlement, with Jerusalem, five kilometres away, with new Jewish housing - a plan Israel shelved last year because of U.S. opposition.

Olmert told Yediot Ahronot he would consult world powers to try and gain support for the new border, which would annex parts of the West Bank to Israel.

"First of all, I will talk to President Bush."

Asked if he would give an order to assassinate Haniyeh, he replied: "Anyone who is involved in planning terror attacks will be a legitimate target for liquidation," noting Israel assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

"If he (Haniyeh) deals with politics, even politics that are unacceptable to me," Olmert added, "and is not involved in terrorism, he will not be a target."

Opinion polls published Thursday, less than three weeks before the March 28 vote, showed Olmert's Kadima party with a wide lead over its two main rivals, Labour and Likud. But since Kadima's founder Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke Jan. 4, its numbers have been slowly dropping.

Polls show Kadima winning about 38 seats of the 120 in the legislature, while Labour would win about 19 and Likud 17.

Dugard recalled that the wall between Israel and Palestinian territories - described by Israel as a security measure - had gone ahead despite a 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice.

The report to the UN was immediately condemned by the Israeli UN envoy to the UN rights panel, who said the document was pursuing "manifest political ends".

Meanwhile, a report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said the Israeli army had increased the number of roadblocks and barriers in the West Bank by 25% since last summer.

The number of road obstacles rose to 471 in January, from 376 last August at the time of Israel's Gaza pullout, OCHA said, and they tightened travel restrictions for Palestinians and made it harder for them to reach properties, markets and medical services.

Israel says its network of permanent checkpoints, concrete barriers and temporary mobile roadblocks are needed to protect Israeli towns and Jewish settlements from Palestinian attacks.

Israeli politicians from both the right and left also criticized Olmert on Friday and spurned unilateral action.

Olmert told Haaretz on Thursday that if he is elected prime minister, Israel will set down permanent borders within four years, separating itself from the "decisive majority" of the Palestinian population of the West Bank. He also said he will build up the disputed E-1 zone between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, despite American opposition.

To read the full interview, click here.

"Olmert's withdrawal plan is the most extreme leftist plan that has ever been presented to the Israeli public," MK Gideon Sa'ar said Friday. "What [Ehud] Barak offered at Camp David, in exchange for a permanent agrement and the end of the conflict, Olmert is planning to give without getting anything in exchange and with no agrement."

MK Uzi Landau, who ran against Benjamin Netanyahu for the Likud chairmanship after leading the campaign against the disengagement plan, said Olmert's proposed borders would not create enough distance from Hamas and told Israel Radio that voting for Olmert "is like letting a small child play with matches."

"This plan explains why Abu Mazen wants Olmert to win the elections," said Landau. He was referring to Landau was referring to an interview Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave to an Italian newspaper. He was quoted as endorsing Olmert, but later disavowed the comments.

Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz said Olmert had not stated who he planned to hold negotiations with, and warned that unilateral action would be "a very serious mistake." He called for talks with Abbas.

Olmert said he plans to offer the settlers a deal in in an effort to reach an agreement about Israel's withdrawal line in the West Bank: convergence into the large settlement blocs and the expansion of those blocs in exchange for evacuation of settlements beyond whatever border is set.

"I believe that in four years' time Israel will be disengaged from the vast majority of the Palestinian population, within new borders, with the route of the fence - which until now has been a security fence - adjusted to the new line of the permanent borders," he said.

"It could be that there will be cases in which we move the fence eastward, and it could be that there will be cases in which we move it westward, in accordance with a line that we will agree upon. We will take a crucial step forward in the shaping of Israel as a Jewish state, in which there is a solid and stable Jewish majority that is not at risk."

Olmert will attempt to garner domestic and international support for shaping Israel's permanent border with the Palestinians. He wants to make sure Israel holds on to Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim, the Jerusalem envelope and Gush Etzion; establish the Jordan Valley as a security border and provide the Israel Defense Forces with freedom of action in the West Bank, similar to the post-disengagement situation in the Gaza Strip.

Olmert also promises to build up the E-1 area linking Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim. The plan was frozen last year due to American opposition, but according to Olmert, Israelis agree there should be contiguity, while the Palestinians and Americans recognize there will be.

"It is completely clear that the contiguity between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim will be built up," said Olmert. "This is clear both to the Palestinians and to the U.S. In my opinion, on this matter there is a full consensus in Israel."

Meretz-Yachad chairman Yossi Beilin said Friday that while he does support continued Israeli sovereignty over Ma'aleh Adumim - a point Olmert raised in the interview - he completely opposes building up E-1.

"Whoever proposes building up E-1 is essentially preventing a permanent Israeli-Palestinian agreement," Beilin told Israel Radio. "Whoever builds up E-1 is preventing a contiguous Palestinian state."

Olmert said there is now a "window of opportunity" for reaching an international agreement on setting the border, in the wake of Hamas' rise to power and domestic support following the Gaza pullout.

If the Hamas-led Palestinian government accepts the prerequisites of disarmament, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements, Olmert is prepared to negotiate with Hamas based on the roadmap. But his comments indicate he doesn't think this option has much of a chance.

"This causes major humanitarian problems: Families are separated and access to hospitals, schools and the workplace are denied."

Dugard recalled that the wall between Israel and Palestinian territories - described by Israel as a security measure - had gone ahead despite a 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice.

The report to the UN was immediately condemned by the Israeli UN envoy to the UN rights panel, who said the document was pursuing "manifest political ends".

Meanwhile, a report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said the Israeli army had increased the number of roadblocks and barriers in the West Bank by 25% since last summer.

The number of road obstacles rose to 471 in January, from 376 last August at the time of Israel's Gaza pullout, OCHA said, and they tightened travel restrictions for Palestinians and made it harder for them to reach properties, markets and medical services.

Israel says its network of permanent checkpoints, concrete barriers and temporary mobile roadblocks are needed to protect Israeli towns and Jewish settlements from Palestinian attacks.

Today, we are witness to an unfolding disaster of gigantic proportions in what is left of historic Palestine and its people. The Israeli goal under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his successors, short of another 1948 or 1967-like event that would provide cover for further mass expulsions, is the complete political and social annihilation of Palestinian will and society, leaving it fragmented, pauperized, disoriented, and demoralized, severely dividing it along geographical, local, factional, and ideological fault lines, destroying its social cohesion, its demographic and geographic continuity, its national identity, its nationalist response.

Even though the much overdue cleanup of the stagnantly corrupt Palestine Authority regime has been democratically realized, Hamas' ability to offer a unified, effective political response to its people's horrific reality is limited by factors that have always dogged the Palestinian people: their own factionalism in the face of severe regional and international pressures that they simply cannot manage; the chronic divisiveness, weakness, and authoritarianism of the surrounding Arab states and their inability to mount a unified, democratic response in support of the Palestinians; the aggressions of colonial and imperial powers allied with pliant clients and Israel; and that unremittingly hostile, exclusivist "political" Zionism that covets land over coexistence, expansion over security, oppression and denial over mutual respect, recognition, and peace.

The humane, "cultural" or socialist Zionism of long ago, informed by thoughts of coexistence in a bi-national state, morally concerned with the colonists' disdain and cruel treatment of the indigenous Palestinians and with the requisite foundations for Israel's long term survival in the region, has been marginalized in today's Israel.

The Israeli plan as it has been unfolding for the past five years is crystal clear: avoid a negotiated settlement, based on international law, relevant UN resolutions, and previous agreements such as Oslo and the Road Map, in an effort to effect a maximum, permanent, non-negotiable territorial annexation of the West Bank (including Arab East Jerusalem), maintain the colonies, and control Palestine's precious water resources. The peace process died some time back; the two state solution, a cruel joke. A viable and meaningful nation-state, enjoying real sovereignty, independence, and self-determination, is in the process of extirpation, its political, social, and physical infrastructure already demolished.

The suffocation of Palestine, that is, the West Bank and its people, its comprehensive divisions into tiny, disconnected population islets whose movement of people and goods is crisscrossed and controlled by Jewish-only roads, bypass highways, tunnels, bridges, walls/barriers, passes, IDs, and checkpoints, is the antecedent to the upcoming unilateral – (but "provisional," to be sure, for this serves a double purpose: it indefinitely protracts Zionism's absolute refusal to define territorial boundaries in the event of future opportunities for full takeover of the West Bank while disguising this unspoken goal with talk of security and missing interlocutors) – withdrawal from the occupied territories. The Gaza Strip, evacuated but economically and territorially throttled, was the minimally sacrificial prelude to this larger, immoral scheme.

Once the (always tentative) West Bank colonial project is secured and withdrawal is effected, then Israel's obligations as an occupying power under international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention will no longer be operative; however, even though Israel the occupier violates these laws with horrific impunity, withdrawal relieves it of any pretense of legal obligation, leaving it free to "retaliate" against Palestine, a neighboring "state," without restraint.

All this is being done with full US, and apparently Western complicity. First came the demand for democracy and free elections. Now that these elections materialized, the freely elected (Hamas), just like Yasser Arafat's PLO in the lead up to the Oslo peace agreements fifteen years earlier, have to jump through endless hoops: recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, accepting a two state solution, and so on.

The drama is already unfolding. American and Israeli policies are actively undermining any genuine, fair, diplomatically symmetrical, and mutually respectful negotiations. The first party is leading the charge of pre-conditions in order to break Hamas' independent will, as it did the will of the Palestine Authority before it, and force the Palestinian people's acceptance of Israel's kind of peace; the second party, under acting PM Ehud Olmert, is implementing this by refusing to talk with Hamas and, in fact, threatening its leaders and mounting attacks on Nablus and Gaza in calculated moves to elicit a violent Hamas response which will then be dubbed terrorism, and to boost the new, Kadima party's standing among Israelis before the coming elections, a game consummately executed by Ariel Sharon.

Never mind that, even until this moment, Israel has not reciprocated what it has demanded, and gotten, from the Palestinians and Arab League: it has not defined or delimited its borders; refuses to unambiguously accept the international consensus on the parameters of a final settlement and the basis for peace as defined by international law, UNSC resolutions (specifically 242 and 338), the US, and the EU; has not recognized the Palestinians' right of national self-determination in a viable state or as equal partners for peace; and has applied obscene levels of force and violence against a defenseless population.

Zionism has not really, even after a century, countenanced or truly accepted the humane or moral or practical reality of the Palestinian people's existence as a national group with legitimate claims over their own land, with legitimate grievances and rights. It wants the land without the people.

And herein lies the tragedy for all concerned. Israel will not achieve the security it craves, the Middle East will be further destabilized, and regional radicalization and terrorism will be energized. To repeat: Israel's current delusional, myopic policies in the occupied territories will render its people even more profoundly insecure, for a state cannot live in peace and security by denying it to others. Herein, too, lies the fundamental issue from its origins: the Zionist enterprise is ideologically animated by an underlying messianic-nationalist impulse, its historical project of a Jewish state over all of historic Palestine (the Land of Israel), free of non-Jews, not yet fulfilled.

And there would be no moral or legal issue had the land indeed been un-peopled. This reality of encounter, of a vital Palestinian people with a well-defined nationalism, simply could not square with Zionist fantasies, leading to a permanent state of denial and violence. To be sure, existential fears are real enough, and were heightened during the early phase of the 1948 war or the initial thrust of Egyptian-Syrian forces in the 1973 war. Too, violence and terrorism perpetrated by both sides is a depressing fact, stereotypes, distortions, and hate, the outcome of decades of conflict.

Yet truer still is the emerging scholarly consensus sustained by voluminous evidence and historical record that largely support the Palestinian narrative: the 1948 dispossession occurred essentially from calculated ethnic cleansing; practically all Arab-Israeli wars, including 1948, 1956, and 1967, were viewed as opportunities for expansion by successive Israeli leaderships who were keenly aware of their military capabilities in relation to their Arab neighbors. The point is negotiations and peaceful relations regionally and with Palestinians are subordinate to territorial expansion and narrow ethno-religious nationalism.

Indeed, to what good, to what end, is this application of massive military power supported by great power patronage and influence in the US and in the western world being used? How are Israel's long-term interests and permanent existence being served by its frenetic drive for annexation of large portions of the West Bank and the imprisoning of the Palestinian people in their own land? The consequences for Israel's future, for Zionism, are ominous.

First and foremost is a continuation of the national security state and attendant deleterious economic, political, and social consequences for Israeli society, including deeply ingrained, widespread, even pathological racist assumptions and attitudes routinely voiced by the highest officials. Furthermore, the institutionalization of such a state is a concomitant to constant wars and distorted perceptions of enemies, including periodic attacks on neighboring states in order to maintain undisputed military primacy and exclusive possession of WMD arsenals.

Second, the permanent state of war will continuously give rise to radicalized movements, whether secular or Islamist, bent on righting the injustice of Palestine and stopping what they see as Israeli aggression. This can only lead to eventual large-scale war and even mass destruction through the use of nuclear weapons, which can escalate into worldwide destruction. The deliberate Israeli destabilization of the Middle East and the successful attempts by Israel and its influential supporters in Washington to drive a wedge between the US and the Middle East is extremely dangerous to US national security and to world peace.

Third, normalization of all aspects of relations with the Arab world, one of the most important factors in Israel's integration into the region, of partnering with the Palestinians as a gate to the movement of goods, ideas, and people, including cooperative social and cultural relations and even potential con-federal arrangements, is the key to Israel's survival. The US and the West will not forever support and finance an aggressive Jewish state when so much economic and geo-strategic interests are at stake.

Fourth, to maintain Jewish demographic purity and preponderance, no solution is acceptable to the Zionist right, not a two-state solution, not a bi-national state, not a unitary state, not a con-federal state. The apartheid plan being implemented in the occupied territories can only mean one thing: continuing mutual violence, though directed disproportionately against the Palestinians, suicide bombings, and simmering frustration and discontent. This obviously is not a recipe for coexistence, but for control, not for security but for war. It is neither moral nor legal nor practical to quash the Palestinian people as a people, to break their tenacity and persistence, short of physical annihilation or expulsion en masse.

Fifth, and most important, Labor Zionists and progressive Israelis fond of talking about Zionism losing its "soul" through the continued occupation and oppression of Palestine are correct but require further self-examination. How far this loss of soul has gone is perhaps gauged by the incredible, copiously documented, phenomenon of Israeli soldiers gratuitously killing Palestinian children and civilians as if they were animals, experiencing no remorse or humanity.

Zionism's mythical soul cannot be regained only by the calculated, pragmatic self-interest of relinquishing the occupied territories, even though this is central to peace. Redemption requires a step that extends outward, towards the sincere acknowledgement of the wrongs and sins committed against the Palestinian people. This releases both Israelis and Palestinians from that recurring death grip. Zionist acknowledgement is a fundamental step towards its liberation and emergence into those humanistic, romantic notions that capture the imagination of many Jews worldwide; it is the path to mutual embrace with the Palestinians and the foundation for Israel's permanent peace and prosperity.

The essential issue of Palestine-Israel is justice for the Palestinians and the realization of their aspirations to live in peace and dignity and freedom. The essential need of Israelis is to live in peace and security. In terms of a practical solution, this means withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories with minor territorial adjustments, the dismantling of all colonies, the imaginative sharing of Jerusalem in terms of sovereignty and residence, and the integration of Israel into the wider region.

The Palestinians, as long as they are relieved of the oppression of the Israeli occupation and achieve genuine independence and free national and cultural expression, do not mind whether the solution comes via a two state, unitary state, or bi-national state. Which model is implemented, matters little to them in practice and in principle, as long as it extricates them from their current hellish existence.

For the Israeli public, as Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, rightly maintains, moral imperatives mean very little; they are unmoved whether the Palestinians live in a viable state or an apartheid state or get "transferred" as long as they have security and quiet. ("Beyond Road Maps and Walls," The Link, Vol. 37, Issue 1, Jan.-March, 2004.) Already, polls show a large majority of Israelis support Ehud Olmert's publicly announced plan for unilateral demarcation of borders and his annexation of additional portions of the West Bank (Jordan Valley).

No good will come out of the Holy Land because the key player, the US, captive to the improbable worldview of the neo-conservatives who currently govern it, lacking the will to nudge Israel along in the right direction because of (ever present) domestic political pressures and American public indifference, has integrated Israel's policies into its own foreign policy. Meanwhile, Islamist fanatics and Zionist right wing extremists, now assuming a centrist identity, are busy destabilizing the region, plunging it head long into wars of the nightmarish kind.

Issa Khalaf, author of Politics in Palestine, holds a Ph.D. in political science and Middle East studies from Oxford University.

"It's entirely clear that the (territorial) continuity between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim will be a built-up continuity. This is clear both to the Palestinians and to the Americans. In my view, there is an absolute consensus in Israel on this issue," he said.

Turning to the issues of borders with the Palestinians, Olmert said that if his Kadima party won the March general elections, Israel would set down permanent borders within four years, separating itself from the "decisive majority" of the Palestinian population in the West Bank.

"In four years' time, Israel will be separated from a decisive majority of the Palestinian population, within new borders," hesaid.

The guiding principle for delineating the permanent borders would be "ingathering (isolated residents of outlying settlements) into large settlement blocs and thickening these settlement blocs."

"I don't want to get into their precise definitions now, but everyone knows that Gush Etzion will remain within the state of Israel and the Ariel bloc will remain within the state of Israel, and the Jerusalem Envelope (the city and its environs) will be part of the state, as well as Ma'aleh Adumim," he said.

Israel withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank last summer, but has vowed to keep largeset tlements in the West Bank in any possible future deals with the Palestinians.

According to the road map peace plan backed by the U.S., Israel should freeze all settlement expansion activities.

MIKE FLUGENNOCK - Born 1957 at Fort Belvoir Army Hospital, VA, to middle-class Catholic military family. Attended mass fairly regularly until around 1963, when Dad had a falling out with the church heirarchy over birth control (he favored it). No Islamic fundamentalist influence there.

In junior high school, joined about 95% of American boys at the time in deciding to be astronauts when they grew up after viewing Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon. No Islamic fundamentalist influence there either, nor in the Sci-Fi and Astronomy Clubs at my old high school.

After spending most of college watching the 700 Club in the dorm on Sunday mornings for cheap laffs while getting stoned with roommate, became disgusted with authoritarian values and naked buck-hustling of Pat Robertson, became an atheist. All that Big Guy In The Sky crap just got in the way of my relationship with the rest of the Universe. Definite infidel tendencies, no specific Islamic fundamentalist influence, though, but my wife and I both do still belong to the Washington Ethical Society (the "un-church of our choice").

Nothing else I can think of right offhand except my extreme enjoyment of a re-viewing of Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence Of Arabia" on Turner Classic Movies last summer. This one had a few Muslims in it, as I recall, but no actual religious teaching.

It is a dangerous distortion, to see the President's words, as indicative of anti-Jewish sentiments. The President was simply re-stating the beliefs and statements of Ayatollah Khomeini, who always emphasized and practiced the respect and protection of Jews and Judaism. The political ideology of Zionism alone was rejected. President Ahmadinejad stressed this distinction by referring only to Zionism, not Judaism or the Jewish people, regardless of whether they reside in Palestine or else were.

We concur!!… Orthodox Jews have always prayed and till today, continually pray for the speedy and peaceful dismantling of the Zionist state. As per the teachings of the Torah, the Jewish law, the Jewish people are required to be loyal, upstanding citizens, in all of the countries where-in they reside. They are expressly forbidden to have their own entity or state in any form or configuration, in this Heavenly decreed exile. Furthermore, the exemplification of one-self, with acts of compassion and goodness, is of the essence of Judaism. To subjugate and oppress a people, to steal their land, homes and orchards etc. is of the cardinal sins, of the basics crimes, forbidden by the Torah.

We have long stood together with the suffering Palestinian people in their struggle for self determination and respect. Based on our religious teachings, we believe it is impossible that any lasting peace can be achieved, for so long as the state of Israel exists. It is towards this goal of true reconciliation that religious Jews strive; via Palestinian statehood, so that we can once again reside in harmony and brotherhood.

May we merit to see the fruition of our prayers. Ultimately we pray for the day when all mankind will recognize the One G-g and serve Him in harmony. May this come upon us in the near future. Amen.
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss
Neturei Karta International
Jews United Against Zionism
www.nkusa.org
914-262-8342