ISRAEL yesterday unveiled what appeared to be an "opening bid" in the high stakes argument over a final settlement with the Palestinians, David Horovitz reports from Jerusalem.
The Hebrew newspaper, Ha'aretz, published a detailed map of what it called the proposal by the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, for the permanent division of authority in the West Bank - a map that leaves some 60 per cent of the occupied territory in Israeli hands, and just 40 per cent under the control of Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
Mr Netanyahu immediately insisted that the newspaper report had "no basis", but the Ha'aretz sketch does accord with Mr Netanyahu's well-known ambition to reach a final deal that leaves an expanded Jerusalem, the Jordan valley area and other substantial parts of the West Bank under Israeli rule.
Given that Mr Arafat already controls some 27 per cent of West Bank land, and that he has formally demanded 100 per cent while privately talking of a 90 per cent minimum, it was not surprising that the Palestinian reaction to the reported Netanyahu plan was derisive. "He is negotiating with himself," jeered the Palestinian peace talks head, Mr Saeb Erekat.
Israel, stressed an Arafat spokesman, Mr Nabil Abu Redinah, must relinquish "the whole West Bank".
The map published yesterday bore all the hallmarks of an opening bargaining position, but included elements on which Mr Netanyahu - who has spoken unrealistically of wanting to reach a final deal with the Palestinians within six months - is unlikely to want to back down.
Most crucially, perhaps, it does not give the Palestinians a single large bloc of West Bank territory.
David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Report.