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“The Palestinian Authority has sought to acquire Israeli territory beyond the West Bank,” the report said.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs asserted that the PA aimed to acquire portions of Israel during the U.S.-led negotiations. In a report, Israeli analyst Pinchas Inbari cited statements and documents linked to the PA leadership.
“Moreover, there have been repeated signs that the Palestinian leadership has claims to Israeli territory within the 1967 lines,” the report, titled “No End to Palestinian Claims: How Israel and the Palestinians View Borders,” said.
In 1999, the report said, then-PA Chairman Yasser Arafat sought to demand portions of Israel based on the United Nations partition map. Six years later, the PA demanded control over the Israeli community of Netiv Ha’asara, along the border of the Gaza Strip.
“In negotiations over the water issue, the Palestinians demand not only the water of the West Bank and Gaza, but also a division of the Israeli aquifer and the Sea of Galilee,” the report said. “They also claim sovereignty over the Al Hama enclave in the Golan Heights because it was part of the British Mandate for Palestine.”
Inbari, a specialist on the Palestinians and the Arab world, cited a PA document in 2013 that the negotiations pressed by the United States would be exploited to ensure that Israel be forced by the international community to cede territory. The internal document by PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was said to reflect the Palestinian strategy of first establishing a state in the West Bank and Jerusalem and then seeking additional areas of Israel.
“The Palestinians insist on going ‘one file at a time,'” the report said. “That is, only after one issue has been settled can one move on to the next. In other words, notwithstanding the negotiations, they seek the imposition of a border, as in the case of the Israeli-Lebanese border.”
The report said the Palestinian strategy was adopted by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and could be supported by the UN. In its recent submission for membership to the UN, the PA did not refer to the 1967 borders, rather the partition of Palestine in 1947. The UN partition plan, rejected by the Arabs, called for the Galilee and Negev to be part of an Arab state.
“Thus, there is considerable, cumulative evidence that the Palestinian leadership is maintaining claims to Israeli territory within the 1967 lines,” the report said.
