Land for Peace — why didn’t anybody think of that before? This will make the jihad go away in a jiffy!
“Channel 2: Olmert offers PA 98.1% of West Bank,” by Tovah Lazaroff for the Jerusalem Post, September 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has discussed with the Palestinians transferring to them 98.1 percent of the West Bank, Channel 2 reported on Sunday evening.
The report on the ongoing negotiations was broadcast in advance of Tuesday’s planned meeting between Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. […]
According to Channel 2, however, Olmert is considering concessions far beyond land east of the barrier and could transfer 98.1% of the West Bank to the PA. That is significantly more than the 94% to 96% that had been discussed in previous negotiations.
The report states that Abbas has asked that Israel cede the Jerusalem area settlements of Ma’aleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev, but is willing to negotiate the status of the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Gilo and French Hill, which are over the Green Line.
In the past the Palestinians have demanded that Israel fully withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, including from eastern Jerusalem. Israel has insisted it plans to keep the larger settlements blocs including Ma’aleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev as well as the Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. […]
Before 1967, there was peace between Israel and the Arabs, because everyone accepted the pre-1967 borders. Right? Well, there was that small matter of the Six Day War, but never mind that.
Olmert has also agreed that 5,000 Palestinian refugees would return to Israel – a thousand refugees every year for five years, according to the report.
Abbas allegedly rejected the proposal and was demanding the return of many more refugees.
According to the report, the Palestinians were also interested in access not only to the Dead Sea but also to the Kinneret, as they claimed they deserved some rights over the water flowing into the lake because the Jordan River runs through Palestinian territory. […]
Thus Israel will be bisected.
Speaking in defense of the voluntary evacuation bill at the cabinet meeting, Olmert said that for the 40 years since it acquired the West Bank during the Six Day War, Israel had been making excuses as to why it could not do anything.
This, he said, did not help Israel. It was important Israel showed it had taken initiative in the peace process.
“We have to advance the voluntary evacuation compensation bill and to bring it to the cabinet [for a vote],” the prime minister said.
Olmert said he had not always supported territorial concessions and that he had initially felt that then-prime minister Ehud Barak had offered the Palestinians too much at Camp David in 2000. “I thought that the land between the Jordan River and the sea was ours,” he said.
In the end, he said he came to the conclusion that we had to reach an agreement with the Palestinians if we did not want to see Israel become a binational state.
There was no time to waste, Olmert said. adding: “We can argue about every small detail and find that when we are ready for an agreement there is no partner and no international support.”
In the not too distant future, there would come a day when “we will want those same solutions that we are rejecting today,” he said.
Israel had to reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians and the Syrians. If this happened, then relations with other Arab nations would follow suit, he said.
Good luck with that.