By SAM SOKOL, JPOST
01/29/2013 03:20
While not ready to sign a comprehensive peace deal, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is willing to establish an interim Palestinian state without a final agreement, former deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin said on Monday.
Speaking during a debate with outgoing settlement council head Danny Dayan, Beilin stated that he had heard from Netanyahu that he would be ready for establishing a “provisional border with the Palestinians.”
“This is something that I heard from him that he would be ready to do it,” he stated.
The debate, held at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, was organized by the American Jewish Committee.
“Both sides prefer a permanent agreement but are not ready for it under either’s current leadership,” Beilin continued.
Beilin, who was one of the primary architects of both the Oslo Accords and the Geneva Initiative, a framework for peace negotiated outside of official government channels, noted that “what can be done is an interim agreement which establishes a Palestinian state in provisional borders so that Netanyahu will not have to negotiate now about Jerusalem.”
“Netanyahu, far from being a warmonger, is a very cautious person and therefore not the one [to sign] a permanent agreement. This is not because he doesn’t want it but because he is not ready to pay the price.”
Beilin negated the possibility of an accord such as his Geneva Initiative being workable in the current political climate or with the “current government.”
He also asserted that instead of the prime minister being forced to deal with the issue of forcibly evacuating settlements, any settlers who would wish to remain in their homes under Palestinian sovereignty would be allowed to do so. Those not wishing to live within a Palestinian state would be resettled, Beilin said, possibly even in other areas over the green line that Israel would retain.
“Knowing Bibi,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname, “I believe an interim solution could be realistic.”
However, the Prime Minister’s Office denied Beilin’s statements. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post in response to Beilin’s comments, PMO officials noted that Netanyahu “believes in direct negotiations with the Palestinians with no preconditions that would lead to, as described in the Bar-Ilan speech, a two-state solution based on a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes Israel.”
Settlement council head Dayan also had an alternative peace plan on hand.
Currently, he said, Israel and the Palestinians “are devising a modus vivendi that is moderately satisfying for everyone. It’s not idyllic or what we or Palestinians want, but it’s moderately satisfying, and in this region it’s a hell of an achievement.”
There is currently no long-term solution, he said, but should Jordan experience regime change, it may be possible to push the idea of Jordan as a Palestinian state.
“There is a significant chance for two states, Israel west of the Jordan River and Palestine to the east, with joint functional control over Judea and Samaria, although not shared sovereignty,” he speculated. “That will be the beginning of serious negotiations, in which Israel [eventually] rules the Jewish population there and Palestine rules the territory in which their people live there.”
The debate was held during a dinner for the Board of Governors Institute of the AJC, which is currently in Israel as part of a regional tour.
AJC director David Harris, whose staff organized the debate, noted that members of the board were granted an audience with King Abdullah of Jordan in Amman on Sunday and had met with both President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday.
“This evening is sort of quintessential AJC,” Harris noted. “We always have a major debate as part of our programming. We invite people who are thoughtful and reasoned but have certain perspectives on key issues. We listen to them respectfully and we process the information. Tonight’s debate was very much in that spirit.”
@ yamit82:
If you REALLY believed that (you don’t, but even if you DID), then there was nothing to keep you from checking it out for yourself.
Of course not. If you want to insist on digging the hole you’re in so it’s deeper yet, who am I to object?
The problem, however, is that that is precisely how pieces of misinformation like the one I identified get passed on to the unsuspecting.
— And as I noted in the PREVIOUS correction of your error, it’s probably how this PARTICULAR error acquired purchase to this day.
The erroneous cite [repeated here, below] wasn’t part of YOUR post?
“David Ben-Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel, speech to the 21st Zionist Congress, Basel 1937”
If it wasn’t part of your post, then who put it there — the Tooth Fairy?
MY habit of “changing direction”? — That’s rich.
Your allusion to the post-Peel, Ben-Gurion speech was ITSELF an obfuscation from the point regarding the Jewish propensity toward law as security.
— Your only objection to the content of my reply was in my refusing to be distracted by your perennial (and here, irrelevant) claim that ‘only Jewish law counts for anything in the matter.’
What’s more, had it been my intent to ‘obfuscate’ your point, I sure-as-blazes wouldn’t have waited — as I surely did — to bring up the matter of your erroneous cite until AFTER addressing the substance of your post.
Instead, I’d would’ve gone after it right away; would’ve jumped on it like a dog on a bone.
— You know: kind of, like. . . .the way YOU always do; right, Little-man-who-loves-to-play-one-up?
“Who”? — well, yourself, obviously: or you wouldn’t have responded to my post.
@ dweller:
dweller I don’t know that your correction is true. You have a habit of bending truth and reality narratives. Second I don’t take orders from you and I need not do anything of the sort. In any event I was quoting Ben Gurion not the congress and as per your habit if changing direction of the discussion and obfuscating my point from a quote to a discussion of an apparent typo.
In the end dweller;
Except for sickoos like YOU (dweller), who gives a flying__&^&*((*&^%%%$)@#!_??????
@ yamit82:
I could ALSO go out of my way to support the assertion that “the sky is blue” — but only a cretin would require it.
— Rational persons are comfortable with conceding omnipresent realities.
Of course it’s my opinion. [Du-uh!] “My opinion alone“? — You don’t know that.
— Indeed, that’s YOUR opinion.
This does not discredit (or even discount) a smidgeon of what I said above.
The issue I was addressing (in the post that prompted yours) was not WHICH law is, or isn’t, ‘valid’ for a Jew to consider
— but, rather, the fact that the Jew is peculiarly oriented toward relating to law for his sense of rectitude.
The fact is that whether you (or for that matter, I) like it or not, most Jews don’t relate to the scriptures (or the Oral tradition) — yet they DO relate to civil law wherever they live.
Moreover, insofar as they identify as part of an international ethnicity (the Jewish People) — they relate, in consequence, to international law.
Typically, you’re off-point again, Yamit, and simply seeking an opportunity to get in a dig to soothe your fragile ego. B-G’s understanding of “Jewish law & principles” is thoroughly immaterial to the point I was making in the thread at post #32 above — which was solely in response to Irving Weisdorf’s reply to Bernard about the relevance of law.
Nonetheless, if you’re going to quote B-G in re that post-Peel, prewar speech, then you need to cite it ACCURATELY. I’ve corrected you before with regard to that common error [post #12, in that thread]:
comment 4 to Yamit in moderation
yamit82 Said:
On this,I must agree. In my opinion many Israeli Jews appear to believe that Jewish settlement in YS is illegal and do appear not to be motivated enough by religious and historic arguments.
yamit82 Said:
and yet the majority of Israelis are willing to settle for far less, somehow believing the other has a claim.
yamit82 Said:
to carefully safeguard means to do ones best, not to sit back and do nothing. If there is an avenue, tactic or strategy that can counter enemy attacks and awake Jews to fight why should this battle not be undertaken. Cyberwar is a strategy in the battle and so is hasbara and lawfare. If we always express futility then we have no faith. If we think it is enough to do nothing and G_d will decide to give us what we want we may be unpleasantly surprised. When war is thrust upon the Israeli he fights; he does not stand still and hope that G_d will do all. One learns how to fire weapons and how they function and the same is true of Law, PR and cyberwar.
yamit82 Said:
Meanwhile, it appears that a large majority of Israeli Jews are willing to cede this historic right for themselves and the Jewish people with the apparent consent of the diaspora Jews.
What will all those who voted for this traitor Pipi Netanyahu (Peres Jr.) say now?
@ Canadian Otter:
Dear otter thank you so much for posting this link it is saved in my favorites.
🙂
My comment was held for moderation