Germany is pushing the idea, along with Britain and France, as a way of restarting long-stalled talks. The Palestinians have said they won’t resume talks with hard-liner Netanyahu unless there’s a clear framework and Israel halts all settlement activity in Israeli-occupied lands they want for their state.
Netanyahu argues that spelling out the end point would limit Israel’s negotiating room and that endorsing Palestinian positions on borders would remove a key incentive for them to restart talks.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war.
Netanyahu has said he would not give up east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital, and has not said how much of the West Bank he is prepared to give up. However, he has said Israel needs to keep West Bank areas with large Jewish settlements or those close to major Israeli population centers.
Israel withdrew from Gaza, now under the control of the Islamic militant Hamas, in 2005.
Officials close to Netanyahu said he would raise Germany’s new proposal with Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting in Berlin on Thursday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive diplomatic matter.
Israel fears the “Quartet” of Mideast peacemakers — the European Union, United Nations, Russia and United States — will endorse the European initiative when it meets in Germany later this month.
Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, confirmed this week that Britain, France and Germany believe negotiations should be based on “1967 borders, with land swaps, a just settlement for refugees and Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states.” It remains unclear whether the full Quartet — especially the US — supports the proposal. In Washington, a US official said the administration is cool to the idea but had not ruled it out.
Two of Netanyahu’s predecessors conducted talks with the Palestinians, based on those guidelines, but no agreement was reached.
Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said Thursday’s talks with Netanyahu would be “politically intense,” but said “the chancellor speaks to Israel explicitly as a friend.” At the same time, Palestinians are proceeding with plans to get the United Nations to endorse a Palestinian state, with or without a peace agreement, in September.
Israeli officials say the international community should not take a stand on one key issue while remaining vague on matters of concern to Israel. These include security arrangements and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who Palestinians publicly insist must be allowed to move to Israel.
This week, Israel approved preliminary plans to build more than 900 new apartments in a Jewish area in east Jerusalem, a move that drew condemnations from the United States, European Union and United Nations. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said in Brussels on Wednesday that the Israeli government’s action will “run counter to achieving” peace.
