Israeli poll deepens Palestinian gloom

By Alan Johnston BBC News, Gaza

As they digest the results of the Israeli election, Palestinians are in deeply pessimistic mood.

Palestinians believe Kadima's policies will worsen their plight

They always have a general contempt for the whole Israeli political system.

In Palestinian eyes, all the parties are part of a state machine that has imposed on them decades of military occupation.

They often say that Likud and Labour and the rest are as bad as each other.

But in the aftermath of this election, as Palestinians see it, the rise of the winning Kadima party presents them with a special problem.

Its leader, Ehud Olmert, wants to abandon Jewish settlements in the centre of the occupied West Bank.

But Israel would consolidate its hold on the main settlement blocs. It would also hold on to occupied East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.

Palestinians would be confined to areas in the middle of the territory.

It would mean a continuation of occupation and a continuation of conflict - and that would be as bad for the Israelis as for us Mustafa Barghouti

They say they would be stripped of some of their best land and water resources.

They would not have the capital they want, and they would have no control over their borders and their routes to the outside world.

They argue that they would never be able to create a viable state out of the land that Mr Olmert would leave them.

A leading independent Palestinian political figure, Mustafa Barghouti, has said of the plan: "It would mean a continuation of occupation and a continuation of conflict - and that would be as bad for the Israelis as for us."

Palestinian suspicions

In his victory speech, Mr Olmert reached out to the Palestinians, and offered to talk.

Mr Meshaal says Israeli leaders have buried the peace process

But on Palestine Square, in the heart of Gaza City, they were deeply sceptical. Traders and shoppers believed that Mr Olmert would impose his plan - come what may.

"I don't think Olmert wants to negotiate," said an old cigarette seller called Abu Wa'el. "He'll say what Sharon used to say - that there's no Palestinian partner for peace."

And it is not just the peddlers of Palestine Square who think that way.

The Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, clearly suspects that genuine negotiations may not be on the Israeli agenda.

Just two weeks ago, he will have watched Mr Olmert visit the settlement of Ariel, in the heart of the West Bank, and give his word that it would always be in Israeli hands.

Speaking at the Arab League Summit in Khartoum, Mr Abbas said of the election: "This result will not change [anything] as long as the agenda of Olmert himself does not change and he does not abandon unilateral arrangements."

'Declaration of war'

Mr Abbas is certainly ready to talk, and he has even suggested that if Israel was willing he could put a peace deal to a Palestinian referendum within a year.

But the Hamas militant group, which has just taken control of the Palestinian government, has absolutely no plans to engage with Mr Olmert.

It considers not only the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza as occupied Palestinian territory - but the whole of Israel too.

It is hardly surprising then that Hamas has condemned the Olmert plan in the strongest terms.

A spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the fact that Israelis had backed the project at the polls indicated that the tensions in the region would only deepen.

"We reject the unilateral plan for the West Bank," he said. "And we call on the international community to look to the interests of the Palestinians."

And Hamas' overall leader, Khaled Meshaal, condemned what he says is the Israeli consensus against withdrawing from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and recognising the right of Palestinians to return to their homes in what is now Israel.

"The Zionist position," he said, "be it that of Kadima or others, is one that buries the peace process, negates its existence and does not give it a chance.

"That position is a declaration of war against the Palestinian people," Mr Meshaal said.