BICOM

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren has proposed that if peace talks with the Palestinian Authority do not result in an agreement, Israel should be prepared to withdraw unilaterally from areas of the West Bank.

Speaking to the Times of Israel, Oren, whose term in Washington ended in September, emphasised that, “The two-state solution is the preferred solution. And if we can reach a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians … that is of course of the preferable choice.” However, he explained that, “the Palestinians have intimated that if they can’t reach a negotiated solution with us they then have a Plan B.” Oren said , “Their Plan B includes international sanctions, targeting our economy, completely delegitimizing us in the world,” and ultimately the establishment of a bi-national state.

With that in mind, Oren told Maariv, who described him as a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “It is important for us to show them that we too have a weapon of this kind.  The existence of a Plan B on our side improves the chances of achieving Plan A,” as it will show there is an alternative. Oren suggested that Israel’s Plan B should comprise a unilateral withdrawal from areas of the West Bank. Although he declined to specify where the borders would lie, Oren told Maariv it would include “a maximum of Palestinians in the Palestinian state, and a maximum of Israelis in the State of Israel” and would result in a territorially contiguous Palestinian state. He also specified that the IDF will remain in areas vital to Israel’s security, one reason why Oren told the Times of Israel his plan would be “very different” to Israel’s Gaza disengagement of 2005.

The idea of a unilateral withdrawal from West Bank areas was also suggested by then-Defence Minister Ehud Barak in May 2012 and was proposed in January by Israel’s former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, who now heads Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.