Israel party chafes at Olmert's Palestinian talks

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Senior members of Israel's ruling Kadima party on Monday called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to give more detail of his rapprochement efforts with the Palestinians ahead of a U.S.-sponsored conference on statehood.

Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, spurred by the latter's break with Hamas after the Islamist group seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, have held regular meetings aimed at agreeing a framework for renewed peace negotiations.

Lack of published details on progress in the talks has stirred speculation that Olmert plans to boost Abbas through sweeping diplomatic "concessions" such as a pledge to delineate a future Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank.

Abbas, for his part, has complained of insufficient specific undertakings by Olmert, saying this could doom peace talks due to take place under U.S. auspices in November.

The lack of transparency prompted protests from top members of the centrist Kadima party. Some warned him against a repeat of back-channel Israeli negotiations that led to botched peace summits with the Palestinians and with Syria in 2000.

Tzachi Hanegbi, a senior Kadima lawmaker, told Israel's Army Radio: "In recent weeks I have heard that there are more and more question marks by colleagues about where we are heading in terms of diplomacy."

He said Olmert should brief Kadima "before the November conference, and not after".

FRACTIOUS FACTION

Haaretz newspaper said six other Kadima lawmakers, one of them also Olmert's security minister, had voiced such "dissent".

Vice-premier Haim Ramon, an Olmert confidant, tried to reassure his party that the prime minister would not go it alone.

"The prime minister is sufficiently experienced to know that it is necessary to prepare the political ground, hold a dialogue with the party's members, ministers and lawmakers as well as the members of the party (central) committee," Ramon told Haaretz.

A Ramon aide said a preliminary party debate had been set for September 20.

Kadima's fractiousness has underscored the diffuse ideological base of the party, which former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cobbled together after leaving the right-wing Likud to push through Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Marina Solodkin, a Kadima deputy and regular Olmert critic, accused the prime minister of straying from the party's "nationalist centrist" political platform.

"I think that the process we are hearing about, and the significance -- this is not the nationalist centre, but left of it," she told Israel Radio.