[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:
If indeed PM Netanyahu has agreed to President Peres' idea that a sovereign
Palestinian state be declared before an agreement is reached on critical
issues then Mr. Netanyahu has indeed succumbed to a logic hiatus. But the
odds are instead that what we have here in this article is someone else
pitching this idea with hope hopes that if it is repeated in the press
enough that Israel will get sucked into it.]

'Terms set for renewal of Israel-PA talks'
By Akiva Eldar Haaretz Last update - 01:54 13/09/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1114129.html

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will resume next month on
the basis of an understanding that the establishment of a Palestinian state
will be officially announced in two years.

Palestinian and European Union sources told Haaretz that talks will
initially focus on determining the permanent border between Israel and the
West Bank.

Due to the Palestinians' reservations over establishing a state with
temporary borders, as was proposed during the second stage of the road map,
this step will probably be defined as "early recognition" of Palestine.

It is understood that this will be accompanied by a public American and
European declaration that the permanent border will be based on the border
of June 4, 1967. Both sides may agree to alter the border based on
territorial exchanges.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to discuss Jerusalem and the
Palestinian refugees in the initial negotiation stages will not be allowed
to delay the announcement of an independent Palestinian state.

Likewise, Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the
nation-state of the Jewish people, and that the Arab world embark on
normalizing ties with Israel, will not constitute preconditions to an "early
recognition" of Palestine.

A Palestinian source said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has
decided that the chief negotiator at the Palestine Liberation Organization,
Dr. Saeb Erekat, will lead the Palestinian negotiating team.

Abbas may also hold private meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the
same time, as he did with Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert.

Netanyahu said last week in private talks that the differences with the
Americans over the settlements now center on whether the freeze in
construction will last nine months, as he is proposing, or a full year,
which is what the Americans are asking.

The prime minister said he was confident that a compromise would be reached
in the coming days, possibly during a meeting scheduled with U.S. special
envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, who arrived in Israel last night.

An agreement with the Americans on the issue of settlement construction is
expected to pave the way for a tripartite meeting in New York between Abbas,
Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama at the UN General Assembly.

Meanwhile, a senior diplomatic source said yesterday that the proposal of
the European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security
Policy, Javier Solana, that the United Nations accept Palestine as a full
member within two years, was made with the support at the highest levels of
the U.S. administration.

The plan is based, among others things, on ideas President Shimon Peres
recently put before Netanyahu and foreign leaders, including Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak, as well as Mitchell and Spanish Foreign Minister
Miguel Moratinos. During those conversations, Peres referred to the Prime
Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, as a "Palestinian
Ben-Gurion."

The Israeli president was referring to Fayyad's plan to build the
infrastructure for a Palestinian state and to declare its independence as a
state de facto, in two years.

Netanyahu has not yet commented on Fayyad's plan.