PM Olmert Apologizes, Promises Concessions
20:10 Nov 09, '06 / 18 Cheshvan 5767
by Ezra HaLevi

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apologized for an errant artillery shell and promised PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas he would "go far” in negotiations. Fatah officials issued open calls for terror attacks.

"He will be surprised when he sits with me at how far we are prepared to go,” Olmert said Thursday evening. “I can offer him a lot."

Olmert said he is willing to meet Abbas (Abu Mazen) “at any time, with no predetermined conditions,” an apparent break with previous requirements outlined in the US-backed Road Map, such as a cessation of terrorist attacks. He said that so far it was Abbas who has refused to meet with him.

Olmert said that he was prepared to release a large number of terrorists in talks with Abbas, saying he intended to release them even before IDF Corporal Gilad Shilat was kidnapped. "Even before Shalit's abduction, I met [Hashemite King of Jordan] Abdullah, [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak, and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair and told them that I am ready to release prisoners. I tell the Palestinians today – you don't know how many prisoners you can have if you were to release Shalit. I am ready to release them for Abu Mazen but not for Hamas."

Abbas, whose Fatah group is favored by the international community over the Islamist Hamas movement, saw his group swept in Palestinian Authority elections by Hamas. The Al Aksa Brigades terrorist group, which operates under Fatah, has continued to carry out attacks throughout Abbas’s term as Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman.

Senior Fatah officials themselves openly called for terror attacks on Israeli civilians following the pre-dawn incident Wednesday morning in the Northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, in which the artillery shell strayed 500 meters off course, killing 19 and wounding 29 others. Just hours before Olmert’s statement, Fatah official Abdul Hakim Awad declared in Gaza: "The Zionist enemy understands only the language of force and therefore I say, an eye for an eye and a soul for a soul. There will be no security in Ashkelon, no security in Tel Aviv or Haifa, until our people in Beit Hanoun are secured."

Olmert apologized for the accident while addressing the Prime Minister’s Conference for Export and International Cooperation on Thursday. "I express my great remorse for yesterday's accident in Beit Hanun, the IDF's mistake firing,” Olmert said. “We regret what happened. But, unfortunately that's what happened. But [a similar tragedy] could have happened from Kassam fire at Sderot and Ashkelon. These are missiles fired deliberately at Israel. What we need to do is to curb the firing of these missiles. But I believe Israel is strong enough to apologize”

I have no answer to this question, I just don't get it.