H a a r e t z

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/972210.html

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday afternoon to discuss the future of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The two leaders haven’t met since February 19. Abbas suspended the talks last month to protest an Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Abbas said Sunday that he intends to hold a referendum on any peace treaty reached with Israel. He also announced that he would permit the prosecution of any teacher who takes part in sanctions called by the Palestinian teachers’ union in the wake of announced public sector salary cuts. The union said in response that it intended to hold strikes in schools this week.

Meanwhile, Shin Bet security services chief Yuval Diskin told cabinet ministers on Sunday that Egypt is doing more to prevent weapons smuggling from Sinai into the Gaza Strip along the Philadephi strip. “The Egyptian activity isn’t perfect and much more must be done but they are preventing more smuggling attempts,” Diskin said.

Diskin told the cabinet that Palestinian terror organizations are constantly attempting to dispatch suicide bombers to Israel via Sinai and the Negev. He said both Egyptian and Israeli forces had successfully foiled many such attacks since the breaching of the border between Gaza and Egypt earlier this year.

Regarding Egypt’s mediation of talks between Hamas and Fatah, Diskin said, “Hamas links the talks with Fatah to actions it wants Israel to take, such as opening the Rafah border crossing or announcing a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.” He added, “It doesn’t appear

that Hamas has, or will have, any real intention of enforcing that truce on other organizations, which will continue to carry out terror attacks.”

When the discussion turned to the removal of roadblocks in the West Bank, Vice Premier Haim Ramon voiced support for the measure and said Israel must announce a unilateral cease-fire in order to test the intentions of Hamas. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel removed 10 of its roadblocks in the West Bank. “Even if we remove all of them it won’t guarantee that all the Palestinians will suddenly make peace with us,” Barak said.

When the ministers asked Diskin for his opinion on the matter, he said the best solution is to finish building the separation barrier. “If the fence were completed, including in the area around Jerusalem and in all the other areas, I’d recommend removing roadblocks in order to make life easier,” he said. “But without the roadblocks between the various areas of the West Bank it’s easier for terrorists to reach the places where there is no fence.”

Go directly to jail

Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian official urged a dozen Palestinian gunmen to return to a lockup in the West Bank city of Nablus, where they had been serving time as part of an amnesty deal with Israel. The gunmen of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fled the Palestinian-run Jneid Prison on Friday, after complaining that they had been beaten by guards.

Israel has not commented on the breakout.