JERUSALEM, May 22 (UPI) -- New Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will Tuesday try to lay the groundwork for close cooperation with U.S. President George W. Bush during his first official visit to the United States.
At 3 p.m. Washington time Olmert is due at the White House to outline his ideas on a host of issues, including Iran's nuclear program and the ongoing dispute with the Palestinians.
"There will be an intimate discussion among the two as to... the general outlines, where is Israel going, where does Olmert want to go," predicted Col. in the reserves Eran Lerman, who had been a senior military intelligence analyst and is now executive director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East Office.
"(Olmert) cannot afford not to be frank with an American president and an American administration who value very highly the foundation of trust," Lerman continued. He recalled how President Bush stopped speaking to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat after he lied about an arms smuggling ship, Karin A, which the Israelis seized in the Red Sea.
But Lerman does not expect "discussions of specifics... It's not the right time, not the right visit, not the right political conditions on either side," he said.
Just before leaving for Washington Olmert took a few steps expected to please Bush, who has demonstrated extreme sensitivity to individual Palestinians' suffering, Lerman noted. Israel opened the Karni cargo terminal for Gazan imports and exports and undertook to ease humanitarian conditions there.
"We will buy them all the medical equipment and all the drugs and all the medical supplies needed to all the hospitals in Gaza to make sure that there will be no shortage at all," Olmert told CNN.
Israel formerly transferred between $50-60 million in taxes and customs it collected every month on the Palestinian Authority's behalf. Now it refuses to hand the money over to the Hamas government, which it considers a terrorist organization. As a result, some 160,000 civil servants and security personnel have not been paid for months; these employees feed more than 1.2 million Palestinians, compelling Olmert to respond to mute criticism.
"We will pay for it. We will not pay (Hamas). We will buy the drugs. We'll buy the equipment. We'll buy all the needs, and we will provide it to them directly," the premier said.
Lerman said the United States and Israel believe Hamas is a "totalitarian terror organization that cannot be made to moderate. The best that can be achieved is to force on them a pragmatic frame of mind.
"Practical politics are going to be theme of the game (when it comes to)... discussions on policy" toward Hamas, he said.
Olmert meanwhile seemed to be putting a greater emphasis on readiness for negotiations.
"I also prefer negotiations. There is nothing that I want more. There is nothing that I will devote my time and energies more than to try and establish the basis for negotiations between us and the Palestinians," he said.
However, there has been no fundamental change in policy.
"I respect Chairman Mahmoud Abbas," Olmert said. "He is a genuine person, and I know that he's opposed to terror... But (he)... doesn't have even the power to take charge of his own government. So how can he represent that government in the most crucial, complex and sensitive negotiations, about which there are so many divisions within the Palestinian community?"
Lerman predicted an "understanding" with the United States on a unilateral implementation of Phase 2 of the internationally devised "road map" for peace that prescribes an "independent Palestinian state with provisional borders."
The United States might go for it, since the Hamas government refuses to negotiate with Israel and Abbas opposes provisional boundaries. Abbas has always pushed for moving straight to Phase 3, in which the parties would conclude their permanent settlement, but Lerman said such an agreement could not be reached now.
The United States will not be party to imposing a permanent status agreement, he said. However, it "might come to the conclusion that since stage two (of the road map) cannot be achieved in bilateral negotiations then perhaps it is legitimate to (implement it unilaterally)."
The Iranian nuclear program will be high on the Bush-Olmert agenda, and Lerman predicted "a broad base of agreement" although, he said, it is too early to discuss "specific responses."
He said there is "a growing realization" in the Gulf states and Turkey that they are facing not only a state of Iran which has security concerns, but "a revolution" whose perceptions of religion and Islam do not threaten Israel alone.
The Israelis maintain a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands is not just their problem and do not want to send the message to the world "we'll take care of it, don't worry," said Lerman.
"There is a Western world," Olmert continued. "There is America. There is Great Britain and Germany and France and Russia and China and other nations. I doubt that there is one country amongst those I mentioned which has a desire to see Iran, with its fundamentalist, Islamic, extremist government, possessing nuclear weapons. So I trust that they will take the necessary measures."
"In months, rather than years," Iran would cross the technological threshold that would enable it to build a bomb, he said.
Lerman said the means of dealing with it short of military action "are dwindling fast, and unless they are effectively used within the next eight to 12 months or so, our range of options will narrow even further."
According to Israeli media, Olmert was going to ask Washington to alert him before an attack on Iran.
