Open-Ended Issue

In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas a proposal in which 93 percent of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip would be returned to the Palestinians under a final settlement, but without a commitment to establishing Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. According to the proposal, in exchange for the seven percent of West Bank land Israel would annex, it would offer the Palestinians 5.5 percent of land in the Negev Desert. The seven percent is land on which Israel's [illegal] settlements are built in and around Jerusalem and also in the northern West Bank. These areas, Olmert maintains, must remain in Israeli hands and will never be relinquished in any final solution with the Palestinians. >>

Ehud Olmert's most recent plan (2008-08-12) is based – with slight alterations - on the Allon Plan of 1967. >>

The Allon Plan which entailed the annexation of 35 – 40 percent of the West Bank to Israel. The rest would be "self-ruled" by the Palestinians in the remaining territories. >>

Israel annexes about 50 percent of the West Bank ... Not as a homogeneous chunk of it, but as the total space of the settlement blocs, the apartheid roads, the military bases and the "national park reserves" (which are no-go areas for Palestinians). -- According to Ilan Pappe >>

Israel’s actions in the Occupied Territories are primarily driven by the desire to annex the territory >>

Handing back control of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the Palestinians as part of a peace deal would simply strengthen the hand of Israel's Iranian foe. "Any area we withdraw from will be taken over by Iran and its proxies. [...] Both Lebanon and Gaza have become Iranian bases, and they would get a third one if we retreat from the West Bank." -- According to Benjamin Netanyahu >>

The Israeli government has suggested that the existence of settlements may influence territorial concessions that might be part of any future peace deal. >>

“The demographic changes will have to be considered and the population centers most likely will have to be taken into account.”-- Ehud Olmert, Israeli Prime Minister, speaking of prospective peace talks interview with the PBS program Newshour in the United States >>

"It was clear from day one to Abbas, Rice and Bush that construction would continue in population concentrations -- the areas mentioned in Bush's 2004 letter. I say this again today: Beitar Illit will be built, Gush Etzion will be built; there will be construction in Pisgat Ze'ev and in the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. It's clear that these areas will remain under Israeli control in any future settlement." -- Ehud Olmert, Israeli prime minister, in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth >>

Examples are:
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Israel has build more than 250 settlements on Palestinian land >>

Israel has transferred more than 400,000 Israelis to the occupied territories >>

The greater Jerusalem divides the West Bank into two discrete regions with no land connection for the Palestinians. >>

Israel intends the separation wall in the West Bank to become the de facto border between Israel and Palestine. >>

Palestinians displaced by Israeli wall up 58% since June 2008
In the West Bank, the percentage of displaced households had increased by 58% since June 2008, while closures have doubled. -- According to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) >>

Israel began constructing the separation wall in the West Bank >>

"Greater Israel is a thing of the past." -- Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel, told his cabinet, referring to many settlers's hopes of retaining all of the West Bank, land Palestinians want for a state of their own >>

The government should offer each settler family living beyond the barrier Israel is building in the occupied territory some $300,000 to relocate. -- According to Haim Ramon, Israel's vice premier >>

About 18 percent, or 11,000, of the 61,000 settlers who live east of the barrier -- land Israel is likely to hand over to the Palestinians -- would agree to leave immediately in return for a buyout. -- According to Haim Ramon, Israel's vice premier, based on a survey >>

Some 500,000 Jews live among 2.5 million Palestinians on West Bank land captured by Israel in a 1967 war, including Arab East Jerusalem. >>