Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, addressing the contentious issue on the status of Jerusalem for the first time, has said the division of the holy city may be inevitable to bring peace to the country.
Lashing out at certain opponents as being detached to reality", Olmert said Israel will have to internalise a future reality to preserve the country as a democracy and as a predominantly Jewish state.
"The world that is friendly to Israel... that really supports Israel, when it speaks of the future, it speaks of Israel in terms of the 1967 borders. It speaks of the division of Jerusalem," Olmert told 'The Jerusalem Post'.
However, the Prime Minister said that the Jewish state does not envisage a permanent accord along Thed will retain certain areas like Ma'aleh Adumim, which he said is an "indivisible" part of Jerusalem and Israel.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians want the areas for an independent state.
He said the US President George Bush had also in a letter written to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004 accepted Israeli position of retaining certain areas beyond the 1967 borders, which is "an amazing achievement for Israel".
Israel "will have to deal with a reality of one state for two peoples as it could bring about the end of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. That is a danger one cannot deny it exists, and is even realistic," Olmert said.
Expressing hopes of reaching a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace accord this year, Olmert told the daily that many rival Israeli political parties remain "detached from the reality" that requires Israel to compromise "on parts of Eretz Yisrael" (Greater Israel) in order to maintain its Jewish, democratic nature.
"What will be if we don't want to separate" Olmert questioned adding "Will we live eternally in a confused reality where 50 per cent of the population or more are residents but not equal citizens who have the right to vote like us? My job as prime minister, more than anything else, is to ensure that doesn't happen".
Reiterating his commitment to discuss all the final-status issues, Olmert however stressed that he would never accept a Palestinian "right of return" to Israel. He said he was convinced that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "has made the choice in his heart" between clinging to the "myth of the 'right of return'" and the opportunity to establish a Palestinian state where all Palestinians including the refugees would live.
"My impression is that he wants peace with Israel, and accepts Israel as Israel defines itself," Olmert said. "If you ask him to say that he sees Israel as a Jewish state, he will not say that. But if you ask me whether in his soul he accepts Israel, as Israel defines itself, I think he does. That is not insignificant. It is perhaps not enough, but it is not insignificant," the Israeli premier added. Pledging to push ahead with the peace process, Olmert noted that there was currently an almost "divinely ordained constellation of key personalities on the international stage" favourably disposed to Israel, creating comfortable conditions for negotiations that might never be replicated.
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