BICOM

More details have emerged on talks between Israel and the US over the parameters of a peace agreement between Israelis and the Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told senior Trump administration officials that in a future peace deal, Israel would look to keep isolated settlements that won’t be annexed to its territory to remain in place as enclaves that would be under Israeli sovereignty.

This marks a change in Netanyahu’s position compared to the position that was presented during his negotiations with the Obama administration in the 2014 “framework document” for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

As Haaretz reported over the weekend, Netanyahu offered to then US Secretary of State John Kerry that settlers who wished to stay in their homes would do so “under Palestinian jurisdiction”.

However, as the Trump administration prepares to present a new peace initiative, Netanyahu has hardened his public stance on the settlement issue. Last Tuesday, while giving a speech before the Knesset at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, Netanyahu said that settlements will not be evacuated in any future agreement and “everyone will have a right to live in their home”.

Palestinians have also hardened their position in comparison to 2014, and a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated that the Palestinian state will be free of “any settlers or settlements”.

Last week Netanyahu told US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley that he seeks to leave the isolated settlements as Israeli enclaves within the territory of a Palestinian state in a future agreement.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who attended the meeting with Haley, told Haaretz that Netanyahu spoke about adopting a model like the one that exists along the border area of the Netherlands and Belgium, in which each country has small enclaves in the other country’s territory.