A final plan for the proposed new Arabs state within Israel's current borders is "20-30 years away," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday. Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has stated that a final status plan should be agreed on by the end of this year, and American President George W. Bush has stated he wants to see the establishment of the proposed Arab country before he leaves office in January 2009.

Previous comments by the Prime Minister have been shrouded in confusing semantics, and it was not clear if he meant that the actual new Arab state would be delayed 30 years or that its final shape would take three decades.

The Prime Minister recently has stated he would not discuss final status plans with Abbas but instead he called them "basic principles."