U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be presenting a framework Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal shortly, according to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who in a Tuesday column titled "Why Kerry Is Scary" revealed details of what he believes will be included in the proposal. According to Friedman, Kerry's plan "is expected to call for an end to the conflict and all claims, following a phased Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank (based on the 1967 lines), with unprecedented security arrangements in the strategic Jordan Valley. "The Israeli withdrawal will not include certain settlement blocs, but Israel will compensate the Palestinians for them with Israeli territory," he wrote. "It will call for the Palestinians to have a capital in Arab east Jerusalem and for Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. It will not include any right of return for Palestinian refugees into Israel proper." Friedman explained that for the last six months, Kerry has been "letting the two sides fruitlessly butt heads," but he is now "planning to present a U.S. framework that will lay out what Washington considers the core concessions Israelis and Palestinians need to make for a fair, lasting deal." The epicenter of the drama, according to Friedman, is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Friedman wrote: "U.S. and Israeli officials in close contact with Netanyahu describe him as torn, clearly understanding that some kind of two-state solution is necessary for Israel's integrity as a Jewish democratic state, with the healthy ties to Europe and the West that are vital for Israel's economy. But he remains deeply skeptical about Palestinian intentions." Friedman continued, "Although Netanyahu has started to prepare the ground here for the U.S. plan -- if he proceeds on its basis, even with reservations, his coalition will likely collapse. He will lose a major part of his own Likud party and all his other right-wing allies. In short, for Netanyahu to move forward, he will have to build a new political base around centrist parties. "To do that, Netanyahu would have to become, to some degree, a new leader -- overcoming his own innate ambivalence about any deal with the Palestinians to become Israel's most vocal and enthusiastic salesman for a two-state deal, otherwise it would never pass." Friedman warns that "If either or both [sides] don't agree, Kerry would have to take his mission to its logical, fanatical conclusion and declare the end of the negotiated two-state solution. ... If and when that happens, Israel, which controls the land, would have to either implement a unilateral withdrawal, live with the morally corrosive and globally isolating implications of a permanent West Bank occupation or design a new framework of one-state-for-two-people. ... Israelis and Palestinians need to understand that Kerry's mission is the last train to a negotiated two-state solution. The next train is the one coming at them." U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said on Wednesday at the Institute for National Security Studies conference that the American document "is very much drawn from ideas the parties have put on the table themselves," adding that "very little of it will be purely American authorship." Strategic Affairs, Intelligence and International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Wednesday at the INSS conference that "Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] may not be funding or encouraging terror acts against us, but the man who denied the Holocaust as a young man, is today denying the existence of the Jewish people and their right to a state." Opposition Leader MK Isaac Herzog (Labor) said: "We are steadily approaching the point of no return from which separation will no longer be a realistic option. This situation will lead us to a very difficult process that will end in a binational state." Obama and King Abdullah to meet Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama is set to meet with Jordan's King Abdullah in California in February to discuss Syria and the Middle East, the White House said on Wednesday.
