The Biden administration and several Middle East partners “are rushing to complete a plan” for a long-term peace agreement, including a “firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, The Washington Post reported on Thursday morning.
According to the report, the plan could be announced as early as the next several weeks, with the urgency to complete it tied to a possible ceasefire hostage deal being negotiated by the US, Qatar, and Egypt.
An initial six-week ceasefire would be used to begin implementing the plan, including the formation of an interim Palestinian government, according to U.S. and Arab officials.
“The key is the hostage deal,” said one U.S. official among several American and Arab diplomats.
Unbelievably, the Post proceeds to say that “the elephant in the planning room is Israel, and whether its government will acquiesce to much of what is being discussed: the withdrawal of many, if not all, settler communities on the West Bank; a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem; the reconstruction of Gaza; and security and governance arrangements for a combined West Bank and Gaza.”
The report fails to mention the fact that establishing a Palestinian state next door to Israel is no different than calling for Israel’s demise. Or the absurdity that the October 7th attack, which the vast majority of Palestinian Authority residents expressed support for and its head failed to condemn, will be “rewarded” with the establishment of a state. Or the fact that the Palestinian Authority actively supports terrorism by paying stipends to terrorists and their families, including the heinous October 7th monsters.
Instead, it places the blame on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, saying that he has given “no indication that he is ready to budge on either Hamas demands for a hostage deal, or his opposition to a Palestinian state.”
“’Everybody who talks about a two-state solution — well, I ask, what do you mean by that?’ it quotes Netanyahu as saying on Sunday on ABC News’s ‘This Week.’ ‘Should the Palestinians have an army? … Should they continue to educate their children for terrorism and annihilation? Of course, I say, of course not.'”
“’The most important power that has to remain in Israel’s hands,’ he said, ‘is overriding security control in the area west of the Jordan” river.'”
The report does cast some doubt on the feasibility of the plan but again astonishingly places all the blame on Israel, choosing to quote an Egyptian foreign minister as saying: “The language of a ‘process of peace’ was with us for 10 years in the ’90s and produced nothing,” said Amr Moussa, who served as Egyptian foreign minister from 1991 to 2001 and secretary general of the Arab League from 2001 to 2011. “That was just a trick.”
News of the report in Israel on Thursday stirred a political storm and Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich announced that he will demand that the government reach a unequivocal decision on Thursday evening that Israel opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state
“We will in no way agree to this plan which essentially says that the Palestinians deserve a reward for the terrible massacre they perpetrated: a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The message is that it pays very well to massacre Israeli citizens,” Smotrich said. “A Palestinian state is an existential threat to the State of Israel, as was proven on October 7th, Kfar Saba will not be Kfar Gaza!”
“I will demand today at a meeting of the political-security cabinet an unequivocal decision stating that Israel opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and the imposition of sanctions on over half a million settlers. I expect clear support from Prime Minister Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot and all the ministers,” he asserted.
Minister Amichai Shikli responded to the report by saying: “If this is the American vision, we should fight it and threaten them with unilateral measures of our own, such as canceling the Oslo Accords.”
MK Danny Danon responded: “There are those in the world who have not yet internalized the meaning of October 7th. There won’t be a terrorist state in our backyard.”
MK Ze’ev Elkin stated: “The establishment of a Palestinian state means the establishment of a Hamas state, which will win in any future election. This step will lead to the risk of a repeat of the events of October 7th for the entire country. At the time, no one proposed to the United States following the events of September 11 to establish an Al-Qaeda state along the US border. The Israeli public will not let this happen!”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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9 Responses
The Israelis (and their American supporters) are “caught between a rock and a hard place”.
Biden is sort of pro-Israel, but only sort of. He wants to appeal to voters who support Israel, but also doesn’t want to alienate the third of his party that supports the Palestinians and has no problem with anti-Semitism and genocide.
The Republicans generally “talk the talk”, but the Republicans are dominated by an “America First” faction that opposes American involvement in overseas wars, and that includes the Middle East, sharply limiting America’s influence of what happens.
you don’t tell another country what to do…..prove your presidential rights first…as long as Hashem runs the world and your are BEIT DIN…not going to happen what will happen Is that only Hashem knows, all of us Jews, were at the giving of the Torah and this ours and not yours……..the only prayers I have for you are in hades
Before giving the Palestinians a state they should grant a state to the wild animals in the African Jungle. I would feel safer to walk through the African Jungle than through an Arab village.
An entire generation has been educated to hate humanity and to become terrorists from a very young age, and now they want to reward them with the tools to commit more deadly attacks Ch.V.
“The language of a ‘process of peace’ was with us for 10 years in the ’90s and produced nothing,” correct – Arafat and other Arab leaders ALWAYS objected the 2-state solution for the past 100 years.
No!
If the United States wants to declare war against the Jews, then on its head be the consequences.
Obama is trying sooooo hard! but of course it will not work!
The problem is Israel has never actually sat down and explained to the world CLEARLY and SLOWLY, WHY a Palestinian State is the exact opposite of what will bring peace to ANYONE. (yes you’d think it would be blindingly obvious by now, but that doesn’t excuse Israel from SPELLING IT OUT, yet again…)
The world works on 1.5 second slogans which sound correct only because the listener isn’t given (or doesn’t care to give) an extra minute or two to actually think about what is being said.
“What is the end goal here?” Israel needs to say. “Our end goal is peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike – agreed?” (and I can guarantee you that that statement alone will already lose many countries!) “So let’s examine the possibilities, and see what will lead towards that goal and what will lead away from that goal”.
If they succeed to get that far (and Netanyahu is more that capable of doing that) then from then onwards it’s literally a no-brainer.
The whole problem is that the world is stopping the conversation from getting that far
Should the settlers declare Judea and Samaria a free and sovereign nation if Israel tries to give away any of the holy land?
I am 100% for a Palestinian state
Infact it should have been done 70 years ago
It must be done ASAP
in Jordan, Syria, Iran….