Olmert also said he would not meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and pledged that
The full text of the interview is scheduled to appear on Friday. He said his guidelines for the route of the borders included the large West Bank settlement bloc of Gush Etzion, the Ariel region of settlements in the north, the
Consensus
The Jerusalem Post also reported that he vowed to go ahead in four years with the planned construction of 3500 housing units on the edge of Maale Adumim as part of plans to connect the settlement to annexed east Jerusalem. Olmert had said last year that the building plans were frozen, after
Should he win this month's election, Olmert said, he would wait a "reasonable" time to see whether Hamas would recognise
The Islamist group is preparing to form the next Palestinian government after a landslide win in a general election in January. "If after a reasonable time passes it becomes clear that the Palestinian Authority is not willing to accept these principles, we will need to begin to act," Olmert said.
Yet, before moving to draw the borders, he said he would hold an "internal dialogue inside
"I intend to speak to everyone, and first and foremost the public that lives in the territories," he said ,referring to the 240,000 or so Jewish settlers who living in the occupied
