[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Here's the idea: the Palestinians get a
sovereign state while being able to justify war against the Jewish state on
the grounds that core issues have yet to be resolved.

What Israeli is so blind that he proposes such a thing?

Oh no. These Israelis think they are really smart because they are
confident that the Palestinians will continue rejecting such proposals so we
can have our cake and eat it too - getting credit for making an offer we
never have to deliver.

And what if the Palestinians don't block the proposal?

Oops.]

PM mulling new initiative on Palestinian statehood
By HERB KEINON The Jerusalem Post 03/01/2011 19:24
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=210367

PA’s refusal to negotiate, as well as world pressure and regional changes,
spurred Netanyahu to consider new plan.
The current instability in the region, coupled with the continued refusal of
the Palestinians to negotiate, will likely lead to an Israeli initiative to
move the diplomatic process forward, senior government officials said
Tuesday.

The officials said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was contemplating
a phased approach “that will lead us on the path toward his formula of a
demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state.”

One official said Netanyahu was “seriously considering” a major policy
address to launch the initiative, the details of which have not yet been
revealed.

It is believed that the initiative – which likely would be along the lines
of a long-term interim agreement – has been coordinated with the US.

Although there is little expectation that the Palestinians would accept such
an agreement, the feeling in government circles is that it would at least
take some of the international pressure off Israel and preempt world
recognition of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines.

Netanyahu has been urged for months by various quarters, both inside Israel
and abroad, to put a concrete proposal on the table that would force the
Palestinians to respond and take the onus of responsibility for the stymied
diplomatic process.

According to government officials, while Netanyahu would prefer a negotiated
agreement with the Palestinians, the sense in the Prime Minister’s Office is
that it was unlikely that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
would sit with Netanyahu and negotiate, and as such there was no choice but
for Israel to initiate its own steps because the “current diplomatic and
political status quo is not sustainable.”

The officials said that the recent unrest in the Arab world had pushed
negotiations further away. Unlike a month ago, when Hosni Mubarak was still
president of Egypt, there is currently no one in the Arab world with the
authority to give Abbas a green light to negotiate with Israel, even if he
wanted to, they said.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has for some time been working on a plan
for a long-term interim agreement, meaning that the Palestinians would be
able to declare a state with provisional borders on a certain percentage of
the territory.

The idea is that once a state is established along provisional borders,
negotiations could continue toward an agreement that includes permanent
frontiers. Neither Netanyahu nor Lieberman’s office would confirm that the
two men had talked about the plan, or that this was the core of Netanyahu’s
planned initiative.

Government officials also would not say whether recent government steps
against settlement outposts were tied to the new plan. Netanyahu has
established a committee to formulate the government’s policy regarding
petitions submitted to the High Court of Justice demanding the demolition of
outposts.

The idea of a Palestinian state on provisional borders was proposed two
years ago by Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz, though it is believed that the land he
was willing to cede to the Palestinians – some 60 percent of the West Bank –
was more than the amount Lieberman might offer.

While officials in the Prime Minister’s Office would not say when the new
plan might be launched, it was expected to be unfurled before the next
meeting of Quartet principals – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, EU
foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – scheduled for mid- March on
the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Paris.

Israel, meanwhile, decided Tuesday not to send Netanyahu envoy Yitzhak
Molcho to Brussels on Wednesday to meet with lower-level Quartet officials
in an extraordinary session the Quartet had called in order to meet
separately with Israeli and Palestinian officials and push the process
forward.

While Quartet representatives meet frequently among themselves, this would
be one of the first times that they would be meeting as a group with Israeli
and Palestinians representatives.

A Palestinian representative is expected to meet with the officials, who
include US Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s adviser David Hale; the EU’s
deputy secretary-general for the new External Action Service, Helga Schmid;
Russian Middle East envoy Sergei Yakovlev; and the UN’s Mideast envoy,
Robert Serry.

A government source said that instead of going to Brussels, Molcho would
meet with the Quartet representatives here a week later. Israeli diplomatic
officials said Netanyahu did not want Molcho to meet Quartet officials until
he launched his new initiative. Israel has also been historically hesitant
about attending meetings of this type and giving status to other players –
outside of the US – in the negotiations.

Meanwhile, foreign ministers are continuing to pour into Jerusalem, with
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store scheduled to arrive Wednesday
for a day of talks with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He will join
El Salvador’s Hugo Martinez and Sweden’s Carl Bildt, who are already here.
Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi was in Israel earlier in the
week.

This is Store’s second visit in a month and a half, and he will be coming
for less than a day, arriving from meetings in Egypt. He will meet
separately with Netanyahu, Lieberman, Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam
Fayyad.

Diplomatic officials said Netanyahu was interested in meeting visiting
foreign officials at this time to share assessments of the changes sweeping
across the region.