Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, a close associate of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, insisted on Friday that a report in Yedioth Aharonoth, outlining supposed land concessions offered to the Palestinian Authority by Netanyahu, was false.
According to the report, in secret talks with the PA, Netanyahu’s representative presented a document offering a bevy of concessions, including a return to the 1949 Armistice lines with land swaps on a meter for meter basis, certain recognition of PA aspirations for Jerusalem, a PA hold in the Jordan Valley, a possibility for “Palestinian refugee” return on an individual basis, the evacuation of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and leaving some Jewish residents under PA rule.
The document in question, Steinitz claimed in an interview with Channel 2 News, is an American proposal “that presents what we do not agree with.”
“Despite agreeing in principle to the two-state formula, we say unequivocally that in the situation in the Middle East today, any withdrawal from Judea and Samaria or Jerusalem is not a recipe for peace, but rather a recipe for disaster,” he said.
“The way this document was presented is suitable for Purim – we never agreed to anything in the document, and Attorney Molcho (Netanyahu’s representative in the talks) did not agree either,” Steinitz continued.
“The purpose of the document and the way it was presented was not to disclose something to the public, but instead to take away votes from Likud and give them to other parties, paving the way for Herzog and Livni to enter the office of the prime minister,” he told Channel 2 News. “We are worried and anxious about a situation where Livni and Herzog might run the country, and the result could be devastating – it should scare any serious person. We also fear this assault against Netanyahu and the Likud.”
Steinitz also criticized former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who in a separate interview accused Netanyahu and Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett of “leading to a binational state or an apartheid state.”
“Dagan was angry that his tenure as Mossad chief was not extended, but that does not matter,” he said “They’re trying to gather former senior officials here as though some former general has any familiarity with Congress.”
Along with wishes of good health for Dagan, who underwent a liver transplant operation on October of 2012, Steinitz added that “to say what the position of the Mossad was during Cabinet discussions – that’s unacceptable and it’s illegal. What was said behind closed doors must remain there – some of those things might be still relevant.”
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)
