Israeli PM: Military must remain in West Bank

[March 08, 2011]  SARTABA, West Bank (AP) -- Israel's prime minister declared Tuesday that his country must retain a strategic section of the West Bank under any future peace deal -- a position unlikely to win Palestinians over to his reported plan to offer them a temporary state.

In a rare visit to the occupied territory, Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel's security depends on maintaining a military presence in the Jordan Valley -- a strip of West Bank land along the border with Jordan. Without troops there, Israel fears militants could smuggle weapons into the West Bank.

"The Jordan Valley is Israel's line of defense," Netanyahu said. "There is no alternative. It will remain that way in any future situation and any future deal. The military must remain here along the Jordan border."

Netanyahu has made similar comments in the past. But the location and the timing -- just as officials say he is working on a new diplomatic initiative -- were notable, signaling that any new plan would fall far short of Palestinian demands.

The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, for a future state. Israel captured all three areas in 1967, then withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas militants overran Gaza two years later.

Netanyahu's comments could be intended to appease hardline members of his coalition who have been unnerved by reports that he intends to offer Palestinians a state within smaller, temporary borders as a way to break a peacemaking deadlock.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Palestinians would not compromise on their demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. He also rejected the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in interim borders.

"Israel is making a big mistake if it believes that it can keep our land forever," he said. "Israeli policy that tries to wriggle out of the two state solution will keep the region in an endless state of conflict."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak confirmed that plan was taking shape in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Tuesday.

Barak also told the newspaper that Israel might seek an additional $20 billion in U.S. military aid to help it deal with potential threats arising from the turmoil in the Arab world.

Without making a "daring" peace offer, however, Israel cannot seek additional aid, Barak was quoted as saying.

To that end, Netanyahu is likely to offer the Palestinians a state with temporary borders, he added.

No details of the plan were given.

In the past week, Israeli officials have said Netanyahu was considering a "phased approach." Although that was widely interpreted to mean a temporary state, they would not say so explicitly. Barak was the first to publicly spell that out.

It is not clear the U.S. would support the idea of an interim accord, given the Palestinians' adamant opposition.

A temporary state would not only give the Palestinians less territory than they demand, but Israel would also retain military control of the area. The Palestinians are also afraid that any temporary arrangement will become permanent.

"If and when Israel offers its own thoughts on how to move the process forward, we will be listening attentively," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington on Monday. "We do not know what the prime minister and his government are thinking at the present time."

U.S.-led peace talks, launched six months ago with the ambitious goal of striking a final deal by September, broke down shortly after they began over Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Palestinians demanded a freeze in both areas, but Israel refused, arguing that previous rounds of talks took place while settlement construction was under way and that the issue should be settled in negotiations.

[Associated Press; By DANIEL ESTRIN]

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