In the face of negative Arab responses, prime minister Ehud Olmert again proposed at the weekly cabinet session in Jerusalem Sunday, April 15, that Israel enter into talks with any available combination of Arab governments. That same morning, Dep. PM Shimon Peres said he objects to contacts with any of the Arab League members before they recognize Israel. After the cabinet session, Olmert joined Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem for one of the regular meetings ordered by US secretary Condoleezza Rice in her drive last month for a "new political horizon." Livni and defense minister Amir Peretz (Labor) were present for the first time. Wednesday, 13 Arab League foreign ministers meeting Cairo will create working groups for the Saudi peace initiative first approved in 2002 and again at the 2007 Riyadh summit. Olmert and foreign minister Tsipi Livini accepted the Saudi blueprint in principle – again at Rice’s behest. Sunday night, Livni is to meet Jordanian foreign minister Abdelelah al-Khatib on the Jordanian bank of the Dead Sea to discuss these groups. Olmert, Livni and their aides are blowing hard to keep the wheels of peace rhetoric revolving, although there is nowhere for them to go. Last week, the Saudi and Egyptian foreign ministers, Prince Saudi al Faisal and Ahmed Aboul Gheit, ruled Israel ineligible as a negotiating partner until it produced prior proof of a changed policy, which was spelt out: Israel must "cease its persecutions of the Palestinian people" (shorthand for counter-terror operations), remove its presence from the West Bank and accept the pre-war 1967 boundaries as the sine qua non for talks with Arab states. While turning a cold shoulder to Israel, Saudi Arabia and several Gulf emirates at the same proclaimed themselves willing to negotiate a mutual defense treaty with Iran. Tehran makes no secret of its policies regarding Israel. Therefore, this move would more or less derail the US administration’s latest Middle East combined strategy for opening the door for Arab-Israeli peace talks and enlisting Arab support for American Iraq and Iran policies. Even Oman, known for its friendly relations with Israel allowed a local newspaper to run an interview Sat. April 14, with Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki in which he announced impending talks on mutual defense pacts with Arab nations. Yet, heedless of these rejections and the Bush administration’s falling foreign policy points at home and abroad, Olmert & Co. keep on insisting they are in the vanguard of a promising and bold new diplomatic Middle East peace drive backed by the US and Europe. Publicly, Olmert declined to meet Abbas’ demand to discuss core issues, such as borders, Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees, until Israel’s security issues, including the return of kidnapped solder Gilad Shalit and a halt in missile fire from Gaza, are fully addressed. Here too he is treading water. Under the Palestinian power-sharing deal with Hamas, Abbas is not empowered to reach major decisions without his coalition partner’s concurrence. In Damascus, senior Hamas spokesman Mussa Abu Marzuk said quite frankly that the Palestinians have nothing to gain from the Abbas-Olmert talks. "We don’t believe the conflict will end," he said, "before Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 lines." Marzuk added: "We will not shut an eye until every Palestinian prisoner is released from Israeli jails to rejoin the struggle against the Jewish state." A Hamas spokesman in Gaza again threatened more Israeli soldiers will be kidnapped if Israel turns down its list of Palestinians whose released is demanded for Gilead Shalit’s freedom. Likud published a statement Sunday maintaining that Ehud Olmert lacks the public confidence for decision-making on Israel’s future. The prime minister’s future hangs on the interim report by a panel headed by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd of its findings on the government’s management of the Lebanon war of summer 2006. Its publication is due later this month. However, a high court panel of five justices headed by President Dorit Beinisch ruled Sunday against the government that the committee must release more transcripts of testimonies without further foot-dragging.