There is no way the Palestinians will accept the Kerry Framework

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 31, 2013, 9:34 AM (IDT)
John Kerry after Geneva accord with Iran

The State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in Washington Tuesday, Dec. 31, that Secretary John Kerry would discuss with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas a “proposed framework” to serve as “a guideline for addressing all core issues” in the decades-long dispute.

“Some people say this would be an interim agreement. No, that’s not the case,” she said. The core issues she listed were “borders between Israel and a future Palestine, security arrangements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and conflicting claims to the holy city of Jerusalem.

”Kerry leaves for Israel and Ramallah on New Year’s Day to continue his shuttle, after Monday night, Dec. 30, Israel released from jail 26 Palestinian terrorists serving life sentences for murder.

DEBKAfile reported earlier that the US Secretary does not expect Israeli and Palestinian leaders to approve the proposed framework – only to contribute their comments. We also reported that Abbas had indicated to the Secretary that that Palestinians were preparing to reject his proposals by demanding their referral to the various pan-Arab forums.

DEBKA Weekly No. 616 of Dec. 20 was first to divulge the nine points of the unpublished draft Kerry planned to present to Israeli and Palestinian leaders this week. Since then, certain amendments were introduced – especially in relation to Israel’s military presence in the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria.  The document continues to be molded by Kerry’s ongoing back-and-forth communications with the two parties.
Nevertheless, the nine points disclosed hereunder stand as the basic guidelines of the proposed US framework:

Israel hands over 92.8 pc of West Bank to Palestinians

1. Nearly all its content draws on the proposal Ehud Olmert, then Prime Minister, submitted to Abbas on Aug. 31, 2008, which he never accepted; nor was it approved by any Israeli authority.

2. Territory:  Israel will annex 6.8% of the West Bank including the four main settlement blocs of Gush Etzion with Efrata; Maale Adummim; Givat Zeev;and Ariel, as well as all of the “settlements” of East Jerusalem and Har Homa – in exchange for the equivalent of 5.5% of Israeli territory.
3. The Safe Passage:  The territorial link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would cut through southern Israel and remain under Israeli sovereignty and Palestinian control.

Our sources add that out of all other options, the American sponsors of the accord prefer to build an express railway line from Gaza to Hebron, without stops, which would be paid for by Washington. Abbas has already informed John Kerry that he wants the train to go all the way to Ramallah.
There will be a special road connecting Bethlehem with Ramallah that bypasses East Jerusalem. This is mostly likely the same route currently planned to go around Maaleh Adummim.
Since the safe passage will cross through Israeli, accounting for 1% of its territory, this area will be deducted from the land Israel concedes, leaving 4.54% for the land swap with the Palestinians.
4. Jerusalem:  East Jerusalem will be divided territorially along the lines of the Clinton Parameters with the exception of the “Holy Basin,” which comprises 0.04% of the West Bank.

Sovereignty over this ancient heart of Jerusalem, with its unique and historic concentration of Jewish, Christian and Muslim shrines, will pass to an international commission comprised of the US, Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
5. Refugees:  This issue will be addressed according to guidelines proposed by President Bill Clinton at Camp David in the year 2000 – and rejected by Yasser Arafat.
An International Foundation will be established to resettle the bulk of the Palestinian refugees in Canada and Australia, except for a small portion to be accepted in Israel in the framework of family reunification.

6. Security:  The Olmert package made no mention of security. However the Kerry draft deals extensively with this issue and Israel’s concerns. It calls for the evacuation of all 10,000 Jewish settlers from the Jordan Valley leaving behind a chain of posts along the Jordan River. Security corridors cutting through the West Bank will maintain their land and operational links with Israel.
Border crossings will be set up between Palestine and Jordan with an Israeli security presence. The security section of the draft assigns the use of West Bank and Gaza airspace by Israel and the Palestinians. There will be no Israeli military presence inside the Palestinian state.

7. Taxes: The present arrangement for Israel to collect customs levies and distribute the revenues to the Palestinians will continue. (DEBKAfile: That is about the only clause which the Palestinians accept.) Israel will carry out security checks on goods bound for Palestinian that are unloaded at Haifa and Ashdod ports, and levy customs at rates fixed by the Palestinians to be disbursed in the Palestinian state.

8. Settlements:  Eighty percent of all Jewish settlers on the West Bank will be confined to the major settlement blocs as defined in 2. The remaining 20% amounting, according to American calculations to 80,000 people, will have to decide on their own whether they prefer to stay where they are under Palestinian rule or move to Israel.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that Secretary Kerry advised the Israeli Prime Minister bluntly that he need not promise to force settlers to leave their homes – as the Sharon government did when he executed the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Netanyahu replied that it was unacceptable for Israel to abandon the settlers to their fate. He therefore proposed that instead of forcing them to cross back into Israel, they would be absorbed in the larger settlement blocs remaining under Israeli sovereignty.

9. Timelines:  Different timetables are proposed in the US framework for implementing different sections: The Palestinian leader says he is willing to give Israel three years as a transition period for relocating settlers.
When he submitted the paper to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders earlier this month, the Secretary of State told them that he saw no point in the two negotiating teams holding meetings consumed by interminable debates on one point or another. He therefore asked both parties to henceforth send him their comments in writing.

December 31, 2013 | 18 Comments »

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  1. Hotovely Presents: The Gradual Plan – ‘Annexation – Naturalization’

    When Deputy Minister of Transportation, MK Tzipi Hotovely is asked what the Right should present as a political goal and an alternative to the ‘Two-State’ plan she answers simply, “The goal is for Judea and Samaria to be under Israeli sovereignty. It is ours and it was acquired legally in a bloody, defensive war. We must now implement the
    vision of the Greater Land of Israel and begin to apply sovereignty in all of the territory. This is the vision reflecting belief in the holy precept that the Land of Israel is ours and we have no right to revoke
    this precept. It is fidelity to the ideology of the Right and the religious public, which believes that this is our land.”

    Although the vision mentioned in the title is a simple concept,Hotovely is well aware of the difficulties that stand in the way of implementing this vision, and the first of them, “the hot potato that everyone has been passing from hand to hand until now” as she defines it, is: what will happen with the Arab population in the territories of Judea and Samaria the day after application of Israeli sovereignty?
    The deputy minister envisions a solution to the matter in gradual phases. “I start with the assumption that this is a hostile population whose abiding dream is not to be part of the Jewish Zionist state. Therefore we must address several matters simultaneously.”

    Jewish-Nationalist Legislation

    The first matter Hotovely addresses is Jewish immigration to Israel(aliyah). “We need to strengthen the Jewish population
    demographically. When Ben Gurion established the Jewish state, there were six hundred thousand Jews along with four hundred and fifty thousand Arabs. These are frightening numbers for a small country without strong defenses. The state could have been destroyed within a short time by Arab procreation and nevertheless Ben Gurion did not hesitate; he established the State and opened its doors to the ingathering of the exiles, seeing the 12 million Jews of the Diaspora
    as a target. If this is what Ben Gurion did when we were a weak country, then when the country is secure and economically strong, a country that is good to live in, should we be ashamed to speak of gathering in the exiles? If, of the nine million Jews in the world, we bring one million, we have already provided a significant demographic answer.”

    Sovereignty over Area C and the Issue of Citizenship

    Hotovely urges a prudent approach to the issue of granting citizenship. “I do not think that it is necessary to give automatic citizenship,” she says and clarifies: “We must begin a gradual process of 25 years under the heading of ‘annexation-naturalization’.
    Unfortunately, I must now use the ABC letters used in the Oslo documents. As we know, Area C includes the entire Jewish population and along with it a small number of about one hundred thousand Arabs.
    This is a number that the State of Israel can manage. I’m not satisfied with just this, and I have no intention to give up ninety percent of the territory or to establish a hostile entity in the remaining area, like the one in Gaza, and this is in addition to my ideological objection to such a concession.”

    “That group of one hundred thousand will be a sort of test case for the future,” she adds and clarifies: “Laws will be passed to define the State of Israel as a state for the Jewish people, the Law of Return will be anchored as a Basic Law and within the framework of the Jewish laws of the state, it will be stated that all who request equal rights in the State of Israel will have obligations such as taxes and National Service. The Arab population today is free of these
    obligations and this population will be tested anew within the framework of new obligations. I do not believe in declarations of loyalty but in the test of actions. Whoever does not take part in National Service and bear part of the economic burden does not deserve to have certain rights. We must abolish the thought that since they are native-born, we cannot apply the naturalization laws to them. We must bear in mind that this is a hostile entity and it is impossible
    to turn them into citizens overnight. There is an intermediate phase of residency that can serve as a sort of candidacy period for citizenship. The drastic step of immediate citizenship for a million and a half Palestinians would be irresponsible and to think of doing such a thing is not serious.”

    Hotovely believes that a phased process such as this, beginning in Area C, would be a significant statement to the world that “the ‘Two-State’ story is over. We cannot continue on this pointless course that leads nowhere.”

    “Which is Preferable – the Gaza Model or the Sakhnin Model?”

    Hotovely is also aware of the difficulty of “selling” the strategy she describes to the Israeli public, who, according to her, want to see the Arabs on the other side of the fence – mixing the populations worries and concerns both the Left and the Right. “I ask a simple question. What is better for you, the Gaza model or the Sakhnin model?
    Sakhnin is indeed not an exemplary model of citizenship but, given the problems the State of Israel has in controlling the Arab population, applying Western thought patterns and developing an understanding that it pays to live with us allows for a vision of future coexistence. This is in addition to an intelligence point of view.”

    Marketing Hotovely’s vision will not be easy within Israel or abroad. She knows this but nevertheless declares, surprisingly, that selling the idea abroad will be easier than doing it internally. “I get on with the world easily because this plan is a democratic plan, a plan that says that after you have tried to establish a Palestinian state,
    (and the leadership in Israel was ready for almost anything including dividing her capital), at the end of the day, you have not succeeded. The other side does not want to end the conflict and there are great disparities between the two sides. And there is not one Palestinian leader who would agree to any one of the principles to which every Israeli leader has committed himself – regarding Jerusalem, refugees and areas for blocs of Jewish communities. No Arab leader would agree to Jewish blocs of communities. They will not concede Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim. They will not give up Jerusalem or the right of return. You have been trying since ’47 and you have not succeeded. If you try something six times with six different plans, leading to a partitioning of the Land, you must draw the right conclusions. If you
    feel sorry for the Palestinians, let them be citizens with equal rights in a democratic state.”

    Hotovely denies what is described as the right of Palestinians to self-define. She notes that “they belong to the greater Arab nation and if there is any place where there is a concentration of ethnic Palestinian population, it is the present Kingdom of Jordan and therefore, I do not feel guilty at all for not allowing them to establish another Arab state”.

    “This is a democratic suggestion that does not depend on external factors. We suggest to the Palestinians that if they don’t want citizenship, it’s alright, but Palestinian refusal must result in an Israeli counter-reaction.”

    “Freedom of Expression Must be Subject to Red Lines. We Must Determine Who Will Represent the Arab Public”

    As mentioned, Hotovely believes that persuading Israelis will be more difficult than influencing international opinion. “The Israeli public has a problem because it foresees Arab representatives in Knesset as subversives, as potential Hanin Zoabis. The State of Israel must have red lines on this issue, even with all its aspiration for freedom of
    expression. The Basic Law of the Knesset does not permit Balad (an Israeli Arab political party), which collaborates with terrorists and spies, to express its contempt. Yet this occurs anyway because Bagatz (the High Court of Justice) ratifies the presence of these people in our parliament, time after time. We must change the rules of the game and define who is permitted to represent the Arab population. We must not accept a reality in which those who hold hands with Hamas and Hizb’Allah can sit in the Knesset.”

    When she is asked about the chances for her plan to be accepted within our political reality, Hotovely is convinced the chances are good. “The vision of two states began in the lunatic fringe of the Left with Uri Avnery and Luba Eliav, who managed to sell a plan that was originally attacked by Golda Meir, Yigal Allon and the VIPs of Mapai
    (the left-wing pre-cursor to the modern day Labor Party), all of whom thought that a Palestinian state would be a terrible thing, and now this plan has become mainstream as a result of brainwashing to the point that even within the Likud, they speak of it as if it were Jabotinsky’s vision. If a plan based on a false premise was able to
    win such acceptance, a true plan should be accepted much more easily.”

    Towards the end of her address, Deputy Minister Hotovely gives credit for the plan that she presents to Uri Elitsur, who has been promoting this basic outline recently. “We must restore our confidence that if the Holy One, Blessed Be He, gave us parts of this Land, he also gave us the strength to be its sovereigns,” and with this she seals her words.

    Women in Green email sent above as this is part of “Sovereignty” Magazine issue 2

  2. Of course there is no way the Pals will agree to anything. The whole concept of negotiations is based on the premise that both parties
    are acting in “good faith”. This is a very dangerous supposition. From the time of the beginning of the Mandate period until today the
    Arab position has been one of no compromise and geared toward the destruction and uprooting of the Jews in the land. Israel’s inability
    to recognize, and act on this simple truth is what is causing their problems. While it is late in the game the only effective course of
    action is to change the parameters and thereby the rules of the discussion. The basic starting point should NOT be “are the Pals entitled
    to a state”; but rather, the state of Israel exists and it consists of the entire land including Y & S. This position requires IL to
    annex the “west bank”. The discussion will then devolve around how Arabs living in Y & S will fit into the picture. The present approach
    will only lead to an impasse and accelerate efforts to delegitimize IL through Pal moves to achieve statehood unilaterally via the UN with
    the help of the BDS movement.

  3. Neither will Israel accept Kerry’s proposals, Moshe Yaalon said,

    “When I’m told about the security answer in Judea and Samaria, and when they talk about satellites, drones, and technologies, I say, ‘guys, you’re wrong. The principal problem is education. If in Nablus and Jenin they continue to educate the young generation as it is being educated today, to idolize terrorism and jihad, and that the Jewish people have no right to this land, if this is how they’re educated, than technology stops nothing. If the education does not change, we’ll have the same pressure from the inside. And then there will be a Hamastan in Judea and Samaria, like in Gaza. It’ll hurt us, it’ll hurt Jordan, and it’ll hurt other interests in the area.”

    The “guys” Ya’alon is referring to appear to be Kerry and his aides, and the defense minister’s message is unequivocal. No amount of drones or satellites can replace boots on the ground – of both IDF battalions and the Shin Bet – when it comes to containing Palestinian terrorism.

    So long as jihad and warfare remain principal messages in Palestinian media and schools, acting as low flames that gradually periodically bring the security situation to a boiling point, Israel will feel the need to keep ‘the lid on the pan’ that is the West Bank.

  4. @ yamit82:

    What principles? Principles assume the Palestinian Arabs have the same vision as the Israelis do.

    Arafat was the one remember, who rejected a final peace settlement in 2000 based on the very “Clinton Parameters” around which the Kerry Plan is built and thousands of Jews lost their lives in the subsequent Rosh Hashana War that followed it.

    There is no reason to think the Arab approach has changed at all. What we have seen over the last decade is Israel’s moral collapse and the frantic urgency of its elite to pursue peace at any price. And if peace is the only goal, principles, morality nor even survival matter. Just getting any signature from the Arabs, no matter how much Israel has to humiliate and degrade itself to get there – would be sufficient. Which is exactly what is happening now.

    Which brings me to the final point: the Palestinian Arabs are not trapped. They are in the talks to get the moronic Netanyahu to release the final tranche of convicted murderers. Once he gives up Israel’s last remaining reason for the Arabs to remain in the talks, the Arabs will walk out. We’ll see by April whether I’m wrong but for the reasons I’ve already made clear, I don’t think I will be.

    At that point, it matters not that they will never make peace with Israel. Israel is trapped in the talks to avoid the inevitable blame that is coming from the world. The Jewish State is playing here with a losing hand. And thanks to the stupidity of the Israeli elite, you can be sure it will not end well! In the end by April, what we all can be sure of is that Israel won’t get the signature of the Arabs on that document and it will neither receive security nor peace.

    Oh and the conflict will go on.

  5. An article I found pertinent and right on the money related to this topic was, Palestinians: Is Abbas Being Asked to Sign His Death Warrant?

    by Ali Salim • gatestoneinstitute.org

    PA President Mahmoud Abbas undoubtedly knows that the minute he signs a peace deal with Israel, the Palestinian terrorist organizations will assassinate him. The mismanagement by Europe, the UN and Abbas’s own weakness have prepared the ground for a takeover by radical elements, and it will occur in the foreseeable future. If elections were held today in the West Bank, Hamas and other Salafist-Jihadi organizations would win.

    Ashton, Kerry et al are trying to create another artificial state, “Palestine,” which will quickly become another Islamist country, officially refusing, as a matter of policy, to recognize the State of Israel and seeking to destroy it.


    If the West were genuinely interested in Palestinians and peace in the Middle East, its top priority would be to campaign for their citizenship in the Arab world, a quest that would quickly clear their heads of the nonsense of the “return;” stop the tide of money flowing into UNRWA and end the fiction of the “Palestinian refugees.”

  6. There is no way the Palestinians Israelis will accept the Kerry Framework

    After Gush Katif, I do not think any Israeli goverment will ever evacuate any Jewish community above the level of trailers.

  7. @ yamit82:

    BB is a serial pathological Liar. One should never believe a word he utters even if it’s true

    I guess you will not be voting Likud as long as Bibi is the head of the ticket!

  8. What’s the flaw in the framework?

    It doesn’t end the conflict! The Palestinian Arabs not even required to recognize Israel as the Jewish State and give up their right to return.

    But Israel is supposed to give up nearly all of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem to Jew-hating Arabs sworn to Israel’s destruction.

    Secretary Kerry’s proposed formula is in reality a prescription for endless wars not a roadmap to peace.

    And what no one talks about of course is Hamas, which will never accept it. Trying to make peace with only half of the Palestinian Arabs is absurd.

    And consider what happens when the Americans grow tired of their security obligations to Israel and dump on the Jewish State a huge and dangerous mess in its backyard. By then the damage will have been the done and the bell cannot be unrung.

  9. Bear Klein Said:

    On Monday, Netanyahu described the American paper as “principles for conducting the negotiations, not a new proposal for solving the conflict.”

    BB is a serial pathological Liar. One should never believe a word he utters even if it’s true.

  10. @ Bear Klein:

    This is the best reply I can make and what I said was in no way for shock value, I am serious.

    Pls take a min or two and read this:

    THE CHALLENGE OF JERUSALEM

    Excerpts:

    On the Temple Mount and below it, there occurred one of the most exciting and odd events. General Motti Gur, the conqueror of the Temple Mount, reports: “The Mountain is in our hands.” The Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defense Forces (Rabbi Shlomo Goren), gripped by enormous emotion, blows the shofar at the Western Wall. With fluttering heart, the Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, speaking from the heart of the entire nation, pronounces the “shehechianu” blessing. Shehechianu – “Who kept us alive and sustained us” – to stand again before the Wall. The Wailing Wall – a memorial of the destruction. An Israeli soldier pressed against the Wall and bathed in tears became the symbol of victory.

    What is going on here? At the Wall? Why not on the Temple Mount? Who at that time thought of Halachic restrictions? Certainly not Gur and Eshkol and the weeping soldier and those masses that began to flow to the Wall. It was not Halachah that prevented them from ascending and celebrating on the Mount. Two thousand years of EXILE channeled them and us and the river of their – our – stormy emotion to the Wailing Wall, a truly surrealistic spectacle. Here was rationality inside the irrationality of the miraculous victory. A forced emancipational Zionism overcame a redemptional-historical Zionism.

    And this Wall is not even a wall of the Temple, but part if the wall with which Herod surrounded it. Its entire sanctity derives from prohibitions forced on us by foreign usurpers, preventing us from ascending the Mount. It is a reminder, a memorial, a substitute. Hence it is a Wailing Wall, for it reminds us only of the destruction, of the disgrace if being below, with our enemies on top. For 2,000 years this fabulous mountain waited for its Jewish liberators …finally they come to it, but what is happening here?…Why do they run down to the Wall? Why, holding, the genuine thing, do they want the substitute?

    The Temple Mount was conquered and not liberated. We are down below and our enemies sit above as if we are not living in the State of Israel, as if we are not in charge in the age of Tzahal . We deal with the recidivism of an exilic soul. Zionism had two sources: a positive root in the sovereign will to redemption, to return, to renew our days as of old, and a second, negative root, in escape from oppression, in the despair of emancipation. It is this second one that won. For truly Zionism was forced on us. Even this miraculous war, with its liberation of Jerusalem, was forced on us to our shame.

    Would one not expect that Jews, following both Halachic prescriptions and their generations of longing, renew their prayers on the Mount? Could anything be more natural? After all the Hasmoneans and the Zealots fought for the Temple Mount, not for the Wall.

    But no: the Jews abandon the Mount and go down to the Wailing Wall. At that moment, it dawned upon the Muslim Arabs that the battle might be over, but the war was not. There was no decision, and the heart of El Quds remained in their hands.

  11. @ yamit82:

    No disrespect intended by the comment I am going to make, but saying tearing down the Kotel and old city walls qualifies for the shock jock statement of 2013 irregardless of any justifications made. It is so shock jock like it is actually funny!

    Again no insult intended but it does remind me of radio shock jocks.

  12. I just read this, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that the purpose of Kerry’s “framework agreement” was to prevent the negotiations from blowing up and allow them to be extended for another year. One minister said he understood from Netanyahu that both Israel and the Palestinians would be able to say they accepted the American proposal as a basis for negotiations while simultaneously stressing that they had some reservations, which they wouldn’t be required to detail.

    On Monday, Netanyahu described the American paper as “principles for conducting the negotiations, not a new proposal for solving the conflict.”

  13. This is a trap even if the Pals say no and Bibi complies by putting in writing what he is willing to give up. This USA framework proposal reflects the damage Barak and Olmert did to Israel!

    Bibi should answer first security is agreed upon and they give up the right of return and recognize a Jewish State then we can talk about borders because without the foregoing there is no possibility of a deal.

    The PALS will not give up the right of return because it is a death sentence for Abbas as is the recognition of Jewish State as it is part of their folklore that they will go back to Israel and eliminate a Jewish State.

  14. After the 6 day war Israel should have torn down all the walls in the old city along with the Kotel. There is no Holiness in the Western wall (a retaining wall built to contain Herod’s platform. It was never an integral part of the Temple complex. It’s historic holiness was it was the only remnant Jews could physically relate to when the Temple mount was denied to the Jews by both christians and later Muslims. What is or should be holy for Jews is the Temple Mount that which Israel has for all practical purposes already ceded to Islam.

    Read the article attached to this link it gives all the details and previous discussion re: to Jerusalem.
    Solving the puzzle in the Old City

    Some Israelis ask cynically what’s the difference this time around in negotiations from past efforts… The ans seems to be Kerry. He is dogged and obsessed. He may have presidential ambitions in 2016 and against a formidable Rotten Clinton he needs to succeed to boost his chances.

  15. 4. Jerusalem: East Jerusalem will be divided territorially along the lines of the Clinton Parameters with the exception of the “Holy Basin,” which comprises 0.04% of the West Bank.

    Sovereignty over this ancient heart of Jerusalem, with its unique and historic concentration of Jewish, Christian and Muslim shrines, will pass to an international commission comprised of the US, Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    The holy basin: sovereignty, autonomy, internationalization or division?
    http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-holy-basin-sovereignty-autonomy-internationalization-or-division-1.182072

    Lists all past options re: division of Jerusalem. In above link