Once again, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, resorted to his infamous flip-flop tactics in the hope of delaying the negotiations for a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement.
His apparent ulterior objective, as recently evidenced, is to expand the territory of Israel, as has been the case since the United Nations sanctioned the establishment of Israel on 55 per cent of British-mandate Palestine.
His suggestion is that the more than 500,000 of Israeli colonisers now living in illegal settlements on Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, which now amounts to about 28 per cent of British-ruled Palestine, nearly half of what the Palestinian Arabs were allotted under the UN Partition Plan, should be allowed to remain in these areas that would fall in the projected Palestinian state.
Obviously, it is uncertain how many, if any, would want to live among the Palestinians and whether they can remain owners of the properties they usurped, and whether they would also want to be granted Palestinian nationality.
Netanyahu’s public suggestion has touched off a storm among Israelis and Palestinians, even among some Israeli Cabinet members.
Already, the would-be state of Palestine has been shockingly labelled in some Israeli media as “the only place in the world that is officially Judenrein (“cleansed of Jews”), despite the fact that some Palestinians have reportedly said that any future Jewish immigration to Palestine would be possible.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settler Jewish Home Party, called on Netanyahu, according to The Associated Press, to disavow the concept, which he called “ethical insanity”.
He said: “Whoever imagines that Jews in the land of Israel can live under Palestinian rule undermines our living in Tel Aviv.”
But the Israeli prime minister is on record saying that he wants to retain the illegal settlement blocs as part of any deal, a point countered by Palestinian officials who suggested that they would be ready for land swaps if they regained additional territory from within Israel.
More on the changing stance of the two sides: In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would accept an Israeli military presence in the West Bank for a three-year transition period as part of a peace deal.
He stressed that “whoever proposed 10 or 15 years for a transition” was not serious about an agreement.
The Palestinians have repeatedly declared that they would not accept a single Israeli soldier patrolling their future state.
Speaking in a videotaped interview, revealed at an Israeli security conference in Tel Aviv and also published on a Palestinian news site, as reported by The New York Times, Abbas declared: “We are willing to allow a third party to take Israel’s place during and after withdrawal in order to soothe our concerns and Israel’s.”
He suggested that NATO could serve as the “suitable” party, thus dismissing the Israeli position that it can depend only on its own soldiers.
But Bennett, who advocates annexing large parts of the West Bank, delivered what was described as a “stinging critique” of a recent suggestion by the prime minister’s office that some Jews in far-flung settlements might live under Palestinian sovereignty under a future agreement.
Some Palestinians, however, have reportedly said that future Jewish immigration to Palestine would be allowed, reported the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, which also said that these Palestinians accept this to counter the argument that Palestine is officially Judenrein.
However, the paper conceded that “all supporters of a two-state solution would ideally like to see a Palestinian state created alongside Israel that is pluralistic enough and democratic enough to incorporate a Jewish minority”.
Another international storm was precipitated by Netanyahu when he slammed the European Union for its alleged double standard and imbalance towards Israel for the latter’s illegal settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory.
In response, the new EU ambassador, Lars Faaborg-Anderson, underlined publicly that the Europeans are “very critical of anything on the ground that can hurt the [peace] process”, including rockets from Gaza, incitement, house demolitions and further construction in the illegal Israeli settlements.
Earlier this month, the State Department expressed “outrage” at remarks by Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, who characterised US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace efforts in the region as “misplaced obsession and messianic fervour”.
A State Department spokeswoman said in a statement that Yaalon’s remarks are “offensive and inappropriate, especially given all that the United States is doing to support Israel’s security needs”.
Yaalon’s focus was reportedly the security arrangements for the Jordan Valley, an excuse to maintain Israeli troops in the region despite the fact that Israel has a peace agreement with Jordan.
The writer is a Washington-based columnist.
