Posted on 10/25/2011 5:41:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
To the catalog of missed opportunities for peace in the Middle East, we can add a tantalizing if also depressing chapter: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's secret offer in 2008 to create a Palestinian state that would feature international control of holy sites in a divided Jerusalem — a concession many Israelis have said was impossible.
Condoleezza Rice discusses the Olmert proposal in her new memoir, "No Higher Honor." She writes that as she listened to Olmert's plan during a May 2008 visit to Israel, she asked herself (and the emphatic italics are hers in the text):
"Am I really hearing this? ... Concentrate. Write this down. No, don't write it down. What if it leaks? It can't leak; it's just the two of us."
As Rice tells the story, Olmert developed a comprehensive plan, which he presented secretly to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, in the summer of 2008. By September, the details of Olmert's offer included:
• Israeli transfer of sovereignty of 94.2% of the West Bank to the new Palestinian state. He offered additional swaps of land, and a corridor linking the West Bank and Gaza, that would bring the total Palestinian land area to 100% of the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank.
• A formula for dividing Jerusalem that would give Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians and Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, with negotiators working out the status of mixed neighborhoods. Each country would have Jerusalem as its capital; there would be a joint city council with an Israeli mayor and a Palestinian deputy mayor.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It wasn't Rice's plan. It wasn't W's plan. It was Israel's plan!
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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No Condi, you were never close to peace. The palestinians have no interest in peace, which is why the offer, like Camp David, was turned down.
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