Most Israelis think Olmert has no mandate to negotiate peace: poll

Aug 14, 2008, 12:29 GMT

Tel Aviv - Most Israelis believe their prime minister, Ehud Olmert, lacks the mandate to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians, according to an opinion poll published Thursday.

Some 59 per cent of Israelis believe it would be better to wait for the next Israeli leader because Olmert does not have the legitimacy to advance negotiations now, the poll indicated.

Olmert is under police investigation over suspicions of corruption and has announced his intention to resign. But he has said he will continue efforts to reach a written framework agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before the end of the year.

The poll was commissioned by the Geneva Initiative, an organization of leading Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals and dovish politicians, who signed a virtual peace agreement in Geneva in 2003.

The detailed agreement calls for a two-state solution, that would see the establishment of a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank and Gaza with the Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinians would get also the Arab quarters of Jerusalem's Old City as well as the Temple Mount/Holy Sanctuary, a compound sacred to both Jews and Muslims which now houses the al-Aqsa mosque but also contains the ruins of the Jewish Biblical Temple. The Israelis for their part would get the Wailing Wall, the only standing remnant of the temple.

The Geneva Initiative, led by dovish Israeli legislator Yossi Beilin and Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo, believes the virtual peace deal would have consensus backing among both Israelis and Palestinians if promoted as a real agreement.

According to Wednesday's poll, published in Tel Aviv, 49 per cent of Israelis currently support the deal.

A large majority of Israelis (74 per cent) also believe that lack of progress in the negotiations would be 'bad for Israel.'

Most Israelis would like to see stronger American (73 per cent) and European (58 per cent) involvement in the peace process.

The poll, conducted by the MarketWatch polling institute on July 25-26, questioned 600 adult Israelis and had a margin of error of 4 per cent.