Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Report: Bibi Willing to Cede Judea and Samaria


by Danny Getchell


Arutz Sheva has received an unconfirmed report that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans to announce a plan to uproot communities and carry out mass evictions in Judea and Samaria.

Due to the political impasse between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu is expected to propose a final status solution that would leave Israel with only the major settlement blocs and eastern Jerusalem.

All Jewish communities outside the major settlement blocs would reportedly face destruction under the plan.

The report follows a report Monday morning in the Hebrew-language Ma'ariv newspaper claiming that Netanyahu has agreed to relinquish sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

A senior political source told Arutz Sheva that Netanyahu will present the plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria to U.S. President Barack Obama in exchange for the U.S. endorsing the principles Netanyahu laid out in his Bar Ilan speech.

Those principles are:

  1. The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the Jewish nation’s state.
  2. The treaty must be an end to the conflict.
  3. The Arab refugee problem must be solved outside of Israel’s borders.
  4. A Palestinian state will have to be demilitarized and a peace treaty must safeguard Israel’s security.
  5. The settlement blocs will remain within the State of Israel and Jerusalem will remain its united capital.

While Netanyahu did not specifically mention the Jordan Valley in his Bar Ilan speech he did specify Israel would retain the strategically critical region "regardless of whatever final status agreements are made with the PA."

Even if the reports are true, it is expected that the PA will reject the above principles and Netanyahu may be trying to show that the PA is the intransigent party.

Netanyahu will reportedly return from his Washington visit and announce "painful concessions" whereby "Israel will implement a large retreat in many places in Judea and Samaria if the PA returns to the table and negotiations gain momentum."

According to the official the idea was initially floated during political talks between Netanyahu's envoy, attorney Yitzchak Molcho, and PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.

It echoes an earlier report from PLO officials that Israel was willing to cede as much as 94% of Judea and Samaria in exchange for the major settlement blocs and eastern Jerusalem.

Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu's office dismissed the Ma'ariv report, calling it "a tendentious and distorted leak from the content of talks whose success depends on the discreetness that both sides committed to."

Danny Getchell

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152264#.TygQ7YFvIi4

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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