A confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered a broad West Bank pullout in talks with Palestinian leaders on a final-status peace deal, an Israeli paper reported yesterday.
Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and other officials in an effort to put together a joint Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles that will be presented in November at a Mideast peace conference slated to be held in the US, the Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported.
Ramon is offering the Palestinians an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all of the West Bank, including the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, as part of a final peace deal, according to the report by two respected correspondents for the mass circulation daily.
PHOTO: EPA
Tzahi Moshe, a spokesman for Ramon, would not comment on the report. Palestinian Information Minister Riad Malki denied that Ramon had met with Fayyad or with any other Palestinian government officials.
According to the report's account of Ramon's offer, the border between Israel and the future Palestinian state will roughly follow the route of Israel's West Bank security barrier, leaving major Israeli settlement blocs and between 3 percent and 8 percent of the West Bank in Israel's hands.
In return, Israel will cede to the same amount of land inside Israel to the Palestinians to make up for the annexed territory, the report said -- possibly including a land corridor between the West Bank and Gaza, long a central Palestinian demand.
However, those Palestinians who became refugees when Israel was founded in 1948 will not be allowed into Israel, but only into the Palestinian state, and an international fund will be set up to pay for their rehabilitation.
Holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City will be under the control of the various religions and no national flags will be flown, the report said.
Ramon's plan closely resembles an Israeli offer to the Palestinians at a failed peace summit in 2000. US president Bill Clinton, who hosted the summit, later blamed the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat for rejecting the Israeli proposal, saying he "missed the opportunity" to create a Palestinian state.
The Yediot report said Olmert approves of Ramon's negotiating activities. If the efforts succeed, the report said, Olmert will publicly adopt the results, and if they fail, he will portray them as a personal effort by Ramon.
Peace moves between Israel and the Palestinians have been intensifying since June, when the Islamic militants of Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip. Following the takeover, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah movement formed a government in the West Bank, winning broad backing from an international community eager prevent new gains for Hamas.
Olmert and Abbas have met several times in recent months. The Israelis refused at first to discuss the three topics known as the core issues of the conflict -- final borders, Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants. But the two leaders tackled those issues at their last meeting on August 28.
Damping hopes for a speedy Israeli pullout, however, are concerns that near-daily Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza, where Israeli forces pulled out two years ago, could be repeated in the West Bank if the army leaves security in the hands of Abbas' weak forces.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned that no West Bank pullout will be possible until Israel has developed a missile shield to counter rocket fire from the West Bank, which could threaten the country's population centers and paralyze its only international airport. Barak said this will take at least two-and-a-half years.
Ten Palestinian militants were killed in clashes with Israeli forces in Gaza on Thursday, the highest one-day toll since June 27, and Olmert said they died because of daily rocket barrages from Gaza.
Israeli forces battled militants in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing four, and several hours later, Palestinians stormed an Israeli army base just outside central Gaza, trying to crash through the border fence in a tractor and a jeep. Israeli aircraft struck the two vehicles and six militants were killed, officials said.
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