The Secret Olmert-Abbas Negotiations, 2006-8

In 2006 Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke from which he never recovered consciousness. He died in 2012. Ehud Olmert succeeded him as prime minister and as Leader of the Kadima party. From December 2006 to September 2008, Olmert entered into secret negotiations with the Palestinian president Abbas. They came close to agreement. Details of their talks were leaked to Al Jazeera and published as The Palestine Papers in January 2011. The talks were aborted when Israel invaded Gaza in December 2008. Olmert was subsequently indicted on charges of corruption. After the 2009 Israeli elections Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister and refused to accept the concessions which Olmert had agreed.

Olmert and Abbas reached agreement on the following points -

• The Palestinian state would be demilitarised.
• the border between Israel annd Palestine would be guarded by an American-led international security force.
• Jerusalem would be shared. The holy sites would be supervised by an international committee.
• 10,000 Palestinian refuges would be allowed to return to Israel. Others would be compensated, and resettled elsewhere.

Although both sides accepted the principle of agreed territorial exchanges, so that some Israeli settlements close to the Green Line would remain in Israeli hands, they failed to agree on the revised borders, anticipating that the United States would help them to resolve these differences.

See other peace negotiations.