[Tablet] Benjamin Balint - Netanyahu's proposal for a demilitarized Palestinian state is nothing new. Such a state was a cornerstone of the Oslo Process and was one of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's four "red lines" for final-status negotiations at the July 2000 Camp David summit. The Palestinian moderate Sari Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University, called for the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state as far back as January 2002. In the U.S., Gen. James Jones, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's special envoy to the Annapolis conference in 2007, concluded that a future Palestinian state would require third-party troops - from NATO, for example - to secure Israel's security. The writer is a fellow at the Hudson Institute.
2009-06-16 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive