JERUSALEM -
Less than a week before Israeli voters pick a new leader, the candidate most involved in negotiations with the Palestinians is on the defensive over newly reported details of an interim peace accord offered months ago by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the standard bearer of Olmert's centrist Kadima Party, was already trailing in the polls before the disclosures last week prompted the hawkish front-runner to accuse her of agreeing to "surrender" parts of Jerusalem for an independent Palestinian state.
Talks between Israel and Palestinian leaders in the West Bank have been suspended since Israel began an assault on the Gaza Strip in late December and are unlikely to resume before Olmert's successor takes office.
Livni has said that if she succeeds Olmert, she will work with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to revive the talks and push for a two-state agreement. But her backers say her bid has been complicated by an Israeli newspaper's report on Olmert's peace offer, even though Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spurned it.
"Peace is not a popular word in Israel right now," said Nachman Shai, a retired army officer running for parliament from Kadima. "Parties running on an all-out peace platform are bound to lose."
Polls show Kadima trailing former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing opposition Likud party by three to 12 seats in Tuesday's election of a 120-seat parliament. If Likud wins the most seats, Netanyahu, who is cool to a peace accord, would form the next government.
Netanyahu has capitalized on the conflict in Gaza by appealing to voters who believe Israel should have prolonged its offensive aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket fire.
Militants have defied a Jan. 18 cease-fire with scattered attacks from Gaza, including a Grad missile strike yesterday on the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Israeli warplanes struck back later in the day, bombing tunnels that militants have used to smuggle in weapons from Egypt.
Olmert made his peace offer last fall to Abbas and reported details of it last week to George J. Mitchell, Obama's special envoy to the Middle East.
An official in the prime minister's office said the outlines of the proposal reported Thursday by the newspaper Yediot Aharonot were accurate. But he denied the newspaper's assertion that Olmert was seeking to bind his successor to it.
