Israel is preparing for a unilateral surrender of lands in Judea and Samaria that includes the expulsion of tens of thousands of Israel citizens in order to establish some semblance of a temporary Palestinian state.
The Israeli government has formed an special team was to formulate the outline for carrying out an immediate handover of land.
The team includes high-ranking officials in the Foreign and Defense Ministries, and high-ranking representatives of the Israeli army and Israeli intelligence also involved in the process.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni and the director-general of her ministry, Aharon Abramowitz, appointed a high-ranking official who will coordinate the effort – diplomat Yossi Amrani, the former Israeli consul in San Francisco.
The choice of Amrani could not have been coincidental.
In November, 2003, this reporter revealed that Amrani, despite his official position as the Israeli consul, organized fund raising events for Israeli opposition leader Yossi Beilin, who then led the Geneva Initiative on December 1st, 2003, which called for the unilateral establishment of a Palestinian entity within temporary borders, under the unchallenged rule of the PLO.
Now Amrani has been given the task of formulating, within several weeks, an official working paper of the Israeli government which will give a detailed outline of Israel’s immediate surrender of land to the PLO Among other things, Amrani will deal with the question of how Israel should sell the plan to AIPAC and to the US administration.
During the Summer 2006 Lebanon War, Prime Minister Olmert was quoted as saying that the war would contribute to his plans for carrying out a withdrawal plan. The statement, which was denied by the Prime Minister’s Bureau, aroused a great deal of criticism, mainly because thousands of religious soldiers, many of them inhabitants of the settlements, were risking their lives on the front at that very time.
Olmert therefore had to clarify that the option of unilateral withdrawal was frozen, and even said that it had never been adopted as Israel’s official policy.
He said that the only policy in effect was that of negotiations with Abu Mazen and the continued boycott of the Hamas government. Olmert is consistent in this position, and has reiterated it several times since the cease fire in mid-August.
Ironically, a previous commission was established by Israeli Foreign Minister Livni to evaluate the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from most of Judea and Samaria.
That commission’s report, leaked to the HaAretz newspaper on August 15th, 2006, concluded that ” Israel has no security solution to the threat of rockets launched from the West Bank against population centers”.
The report’s authors assumed that following any unilateral Israeli pullout from any part of Judea and Samaria, Hamas will takeover and deploy rockets against Israel’s population centers on Israel’s coastal plain.
The report emphasized that the only solution to the missile threat that the Israel Defense Forces has to offer is its actual presence in the territories and control of the high ground of Judea and Samaria, also known as the “west bank”
Another conclusion of the report commissioned by the Israeli Foreign Minister is that Israel will not gain international recognition for an end to the occupation if it continues to hold significant portions of the West Bank.
Foreign Ministry Director General Aharon Abramovitch, headed that commission.
Israeli Member of the Knesset has asked for a copy of the previous Israeli foreign ministry report which warned against any unilateral surrender of territory to the PLO.
The spokesman of the Israel Foreign Ministry has informed MK Alon’s aide that this was an “internal report” that it would not be released.