Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed settling Palestinians in the Sinai Peninsula before the Egyptian leader's ouster, Egyptian newspaper AlYoum AlSabaa reported on Sunday. The report was based on recorded interviews with the former president after the army overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government in July of this year. The recorded interviews were set to be aired within the next week, according to the report, which would mark the first time Mubarak's voice would be publicly heard since he was deposed. Legal proceedings against Mubarak over charges of killing protesters have been held behind closed doors. The former president reportedly offers his opinions on the state of Egyptian affairs since his government was toppled in a popular revolution in February 2011, according to AlYoum AlSabaa. Mubarak elaborated on his final conversation with Netanyahu, in which the latter proposed a "creative" solution to the Palestinian issue. "In my final meeting with Netanyahu in Egypt, he approached me with a proposal to settle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in Sinai," Mubarak said in the interview. "Netanyahu came with a map of the border between Gaza, Israel and Egypt, and offered this as a theoretical proposal alone, to test what our response would be. I told him he ought to bury the proposal fast, unless he wanted a war to break out between Egypt and Israel." During the interview, Mubarak pointed the proverbial finger at Washington, accusing the U.S. of standing behind his ouster. "The U.S. acted to provoke the Egyptian public. In January 2011, the U.S. encouraged the masses to flood the streets, they turned on me behind my back," he said.
