Biden told Netanyahu that he wants agreement to include measures that maintain prospects for two-state solution; Netanyahu kept his affirmative response vague
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told US President Joe Biden during their meeting last week that he is prepared to take steps that would keep the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement alive as part of the normalization agreement that Washington is trying to broker between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Netanyahu has said publicly since the New York meeting that the Palestinians should be part of the US-Israel-Saudi agreement — but that they should not have a veto over it. A willingness to extend that Palestinian element to steps relating to a future peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians — as vague as that might be — is not something he has acknowledged publicly.
According to a Thursday report on the Walla news site, Netanyahu’s aides met with senior White House officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein the night before the prime minister’s meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. During that preparatory meeting, the US officials asked their Israeli counterparts what concessions to the Palestinians Netanyahu would be prepared to offer Biden during their sit-down.
The Netanyahu aides declined to get into specifics, telling McGurk and Hochstein that the prime minister would discuss the matter during the one-on-one portion of the meeting with Biden the next day.
The Palestinian component of the Saudi deal took up a significant portion of the meeting Biden and Netanyahu held with their staffs on September 20, Walla said, citing a senior Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter.
Biden did not give a list of specific concessions he would like Netanyahu to make but he did say that he wants Israel to take steps that will preserve the possibility of a two-state solution.
Netanyahu replied by offering a general agreement to take steps that would leave the door open to a future peace agreement with the Palestinians, Walla said.
For roughly a decade, Netanyahu has refrained from expressing support for two states, instead saying he would only accept “limited sovereignty” for the Palestinians with Israel maintaining security control over the West Bank.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-pm-open-to-steps-to-keep-chance-for-palestinian-peace-alive-for-saudi-deal/.
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