Netanyahu opposes Palestinian state, Israeli minister says ahead of U.S. visit

[Right_in_Virginia]

Netanyahu opposes Palestinian state, Israeli minister says ahead of U.S. visit
Reuters, Feb 13, 2017, Jeffrey Heller

Benjamin Netanyahu opposes a Palestinian state, a senior Israeli cabinet member said on Monday, but left it unclear whether the prime minister would say that publicly in talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington this week.

Netanyahu has never explicitly abandoned his conditional support for a future Palestine, and his spokesman did not respond immediately to a request to comment on Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan's remarks.

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But asked if Netanyahu would voice opposition to statehood on camera when he meets Trump, Erdan said: "The prime minister has to weigh things according to what he feels in the meeting and the positions he encounters there. No one knows what the positions of the president and his staff are."

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Since Trump took office last month, Netanyahu has approved construction of 6,000 settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, drawing international condemnation which the White House did not join.
 
In recent days, however, the Trump administration has taken a more nuanced position, saying building new settlements or expanding existing ones may not be helpful in achieving peace.

Netanyahu has spelled out terms for a future Palestine: its demilitarization, the stationing of Israeli troops in its territory and Palestinian recognition of Israel as the "nation-state" of the Jewish people.

Last month, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Netanyahu, in a closed-door meeting with Likud ministers, coined a new term "Palestinian state-minus" to describe his vision of limited Palestinian sovereignty.

Under interim peace deals, Palestinians, who number about 2.5 million in the West Bank, currently exercise limited self-rule in the territory, where some 350,000 Israeli settlers live.

Some members of Netanyahu's government have called for the annexation of parts of the West Bank, a demand he has resisted.

 
More: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel-idUSKBN15S188

[Right_in_Virginia]

IMHO, these are the choices I see before Israel:

 1) Negotiate in good faith a full-fledged Palestinian state,
 2) March 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians into Jordan.   
 3) Annex the West Bank and give full Israeli citizenship to all living there.   
 4) Institute what Netanyahu calls a "state-minus" -- a demilitarized Palestine with Israeli troops stationed in its territory and Palestinian recognition of Israel as the "nation-state" of the Jewish people.

I think #1 is off the table because the Netanyhau administration will not negotiate a Palestinian state in good faith.  Bibi needs his right flank to help him withstand mounting ethics problems at home, so he'll not go against their calls for "no two-state solution".

#2--Jordan will have something to say about this. I suspect it won't be positive.

#3--Israel's demographics cannot/will not absorb a large and growing Palestinian voting bloc.

#4--This changes nothing, most likely increases violence and will turn Israel into a pariah State--with Israel able to offer little defense.


I don't know where any help from the US would fit or what it would look like. 

[EC]

#2 is definitely out, for several reasons.

Israel and Jordan are actually getting along well enough to carry out joint projects. Jordan is also overloaded with refugees on the Syrian border. At the same time, the Jordanian military is sufficiently nasty to give even the IDF pause if things took a sour turn. So Bibi isn't going to dump 2.5 million vagrants on Jordan.

It's going to be either 1 or 4 - and I'm calling 4, simply on national security grounds.