Senior officials responded with considerable suspicion to claims that Benjamin
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was prepared to compromise on his
long-standing objections to Palestinian sovereignty over the occupied West
Bank within its current boundaries.
The suggestion that Mr Netanyahu could countenance, with certain exceptions,
an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 ceasefire lines, had raised unexpected
optimism for a breakthrough in the peace process after months of acrimonious
stalemate.
But Palestinian officials were quick to challenge the prime minister's
sincerity, suggesting that he was engaged in a ruse and that he would never
live up to his word.
"When I hear this from Netanyahu's lips, that he will accept an Israeli
state along 1967 borders, I will believe it," said Saeb Erekat, a
leading Palestinian negotiator. "But what I have read so far is a
masterpiece of PR and linguistics. [The Israelis] do this very well.
"Such an important thing deserves that Netanyahu speak to his people in
Hebrew, Arabic, English or Chinese, so we can hear him saying that he
accepts a two state solution along the 1967 borders.
"If he cannot do this, then all this is PR and deceit. I'm not saying I
disbelieve it, but I want to hear it from his mouth."
Israel took observers by surprise on Monday when it emerged he was prepared to
accept a formula using the phraseology of "1967 lines" so hated by
the Israeli right as the basis for resuming negotiations.
Ostensibly, the concession fulfils a key Palestinian demand for the resumption
of peace talks. Palestinians have long insisted that any state of their own
must include the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the bulk of the West Bank,
land occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israeli officials say they are prepared to accept a package to be proposed by
the United States and its negotiating partners - the UN, the EU and Russia -
under which talks for the creation of a Palestinian state would be based on
the 1967 ceasefire lines.
Israel insists, however, that adjustments would have to be made to allow it to
annex some if its larger settlements in the West Bank in exchange for land
in Israel. Although the Palestinians tacitly accept such a formula, and have
conducted negotiations on that basis in the past, Mr Netanyahu has so far
given no hint of how much of the West Bank he wants and what he is prepared
to offer in return.
A senior Palestinian official challenged the Israeli prime minister to make
his offer public.
"This is not a serious statement from Netanyahu," said Nabil Abu
Rudeina, a senior aide to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian
Authority.
"But if he goes publicly and states that he is ready to negotiate, he
will find Palestine willing to start talks immediately."
Yet even if Mr Netanyahu is sincere, his offer is couched in caveats that the
Palestinians are unlikely to accept.
Officials in Jerusalem have said that the offer only stands if the
Palestinians are prepared to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and retract
their application for recognition of an independent Palestinian state, which
is to be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly next month.
Indeed, for the Palestinians the entire offer seems to be proof that Mr
Netanyahu is adept at appearing to give them what they want while exacting
so high a price that it becomes impossible to accept.
Other Palestinians have interpreted the move as a sign of Israeli panic that
the General Assembly could grant some of kind of recognition of Palestine as
a sovereign state next month.
"This move of Palestine approaching the United Nations has caused a lot
of trauma within Israel," said Munib al-Masri, a prominent Palestinian
politician and businessman. "I think this announcement from Netanyahu
is an attempt to prevent it from happening."
