In response to the Geneva document formulated by the extreme left-wing, the Yesha Council has been at work on a plan of its own. The Council planned to release it only a couple of weeks from now, but word of it somehow reached the media this morning. It involves three stages - "it doesn't pretend to provide an immediate permanent solution like some other moonstruck plans such as Geneva," said former MK Chanan Porat, one of the formulators of the plan - and cannot proceed to one stage before the previous one has been fully implemented: a total end to terrorism and the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority; the establishment of individual autonomous Arab cantons in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; and a permanent solution.
The objective, according to Wallerstein, is to retain Israel's full sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel west of the Jordan River, while enabling the Arabs in Yesha to run their own lives. Those who agree to recognize the State of Israel will be permitted to vote in national elections, but the Jewish majority in the Knesset will be guaranteed in a system similar to that of the United States: "The Arabs of Yesha will be organized into cantons with a set number of representatives, guaranteeing their representation in the Knesset, but ensuring that it will never be more than the Jewish representatives."
Asked whether the plan would be distributed to every household in Israel, as the Geneva document was, Wallerstein answered wryly, "Do you have the funding for it? The Geneva people have received more money from the Swiss government than Israel's public-relations budget for the entire world."
Likud MK Gilad Erdan said that the plan was a joint formulation of the Yesha Council and several Likud MKs, including himself, and that it is designed to attract the "centrist lines of the Likud and other right-wing parties." The plan drew the expected criticism from the left-wing - Meretz MK Zahava Gal'on said that it is just another apartheid program - as well as some less-expected criticism from the right-wing: MK Uri Ariel of the National Union said, "I suggest to all of us, even in the Yesha Council, not to be among the compromisers; so many people are willing to give up on some of that which is ours; we need not join them. All we have to do is stand firm on what we believe in; it will take a while, but it will happen."
MK Yechiel Chazan (Likud) submitted a legislative proposal yesterday that would require a special 2/3 majority of 80 MKs for any initiative to uproot communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He told Arutz-7 this morning that it would take some 45 days for the bill to come to a preliminary-reading vote.
The objective, according to Wallerstein, is to retain Israel's full sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel west of the Jordan River, while enabling the Arabs in Yesha to run their own lives. Those who agree to recognize the State of Israel will be permitted to vote in national elections, but the Jewish majority in the Knesset will be guaranteed in a system similar to that of the United States: "The Arabs of Yesha will be organized into cantons with a set number of representatives, guaranteeing their representation in the Knesset, but ensuring that it will never be more than the Jewish representatives."
Asked whether the plan would be distributed to every household in Israel, as the Geneva document was, Wallerstein answered wryly, "Do you have the funding for it? The Geneva people have received more money from the Swiss government than Israel's public-relations budget for the entire world."
Likud MK Gilad Erdan said that the plan was a joint formulation of the Yesha Council and several Likud MKs, including himself, and that it is designed to attract the "centrist lines of the Likud and other right-wing parties." The plan drew the expected criticism from the left-wing - Meretz MK Zahava Gal'on said that it is just another apartheid program - as well as some less-expected criticism from the right-wing: MK Uri Ariel of the National Union said, "I suggest to all of us, even in the Yesha Council, not to be among the compromisers; so many people are willing to give up on some of that which is ours; we need not join them. All we have to do is stand firm on what we believe in; it will take a while, but it will happen."
MK Yechiel Chazan (Likud) submitted a legislative proposal yesterday that would require a special 2/3 majority of 80 MKs for any initiative to uproot communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He told Arutz-7 this morning that it would take some 45 days for the bill to come to a preliminary-reading vote.