Olmert: We May Split Jerusalem as Long as we can isolate East Jerusalem first.

As always with the Israelis the headline never tells the full story. The Independent reports:

Two senior Israeli politicians, including the prime minister's closest ally, talked openly yesterday about dividing Jerusalem, signaling a possible shift in the Israeli consensus at a time when Israeli and Palestinian teams are trying to reach agreement on principles guiding future peace talks.

The dispute over Jerusalem is one of the most explosive of the conflict and has derailed negotiations in the past. The ideas raised by Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon still fall far short of Palestinian demands to establish their capital in all of the city's eastern sector, annexed by Israel after the 1967 Mideast War.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, meanwhile, told his parliament he won't be deterred from seeking a peace deal with the Palestinians. He said Israel has missed opportunities in the past, and warned that continued failure would mean a "demographic struggle steeped in blood and tears."

Which certainly makes one think that the Israelis are on the verge of a very welcome breakthrough in their thinking that might break the impasse of a 40 year war.

But then I head over to Ha'aretz to see what their take is on this and come across a totally different story:

The Israel Defense Forces recently issued an order expropriating over 1,100 dunams of land from four Arab villages located between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim.

The land is slated to be used for a new Palestinian road that would connect East Jerusalem with Jericho. That in turn would "free up" the E-1 area between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim - through which the current Jerusalem-Jericho road runs - for a long-planned Jewish development consisting of 3,500 apartments and an industrial park.

The Palestinians and the international community, including the United States, have long objected to the E-1 plan on the grounds that it would cut the West Bank in two and sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

The Israelis are great at this shit. The first headline leads you to believe one thing and yet underneath lies a totally different story.

In one story they are considering letting go of some of the beliefs that "fed the national ethos for many years," leading one to believe that, not only are they acknowledging the need to split Jerusalem, but Olmert is making serious noises about giving up West Bank land. And then, in the other, we see that the plan is to cut East Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank.

It's simply impossible to believe that they are serious about the former whilst they engage in the latter.

You can't say that you are serious about splitting Jerusalem while in the process of turning East Jerusalem into an island totally cut off from the rest of the West Bank.

God, it's depressing...

Tags: Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Gaza, Olmert, East Jerusalem, E-1 plan