TEL AVIV //Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister, is working to advance a plan for an interim agreement with the Palestinians that he hopes will eventually be presented as the official Israeli position on the peace process.
The general outline of the plan, which includes bolstering the Palestinian economic and security conditions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have already been shown to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the liberal Haaretz newspaper reported yesterday.
Mr Lieberman is also trying to push through a vote on the plan by the seven-member inner cabinet of Mr Netanyahu, which guides policy and includes mostly right-wingers.
Mr Netanyahu yesterday indicated that he does not rule out an interim pact.
Speaking during an Israeli television interview, he said: "There could certainly be a situation in which we will get into a discussion with the Palestinians and hit a wall on the issue of Jerusalem and refugees."
According to Haaretz, the plan would boost the security co-operation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and include transferring more security responsibilities to Palestinian forces.
It would loosen some of Israel's movement restrictions on Palestinians and aim to improve the Palestinian economy to reach some US$20,000 (Dh73,000) in gross domestic product per capita, an ambitious goal given that the current level is estimated at $3,000. In comparison, Israel's GDP per capita stands at about $27,000, according to World Bank data.
Palestinians yesterday blasted Mr Lieberman's plan as a bid for Israel to maintain its occupation of the West Bank, which it captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
"We are done with interim arrangements - we need to go for a permanent solution based on two states," said Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority. "These interim solutions are all different ways or forms for Israel to try to keep its control of the land that it occupies."
Israel's top diplomat hopes that his plan would be presented in coming months to Washington as the official Israeli position on the peace process.
However, it appears doubtful that it would be welcomed by the US, which is trying to reignite face-to-face talks between Israel and the Palestinians after direct talks in September collapsed following only three rounds of negotiations. Yesterday, Mr Lieberman also continued his attack against Turkey, which has sharply condemned Israel's deadly raid on a Turkish-flagged ship aiming to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip last May.
A day after he dismissed as "Chutzpah" a Turkish offer to restore ties if Israel apologises for the incident and accused Turkey's top officials of spreading "lies" about Israel, he said yesterday that Israel cannot allow itself to become a "punching bag" in its dispute with Turkey. Mr Netanyahu, in yesterday's televised interview, appeared to back up his foreign minister by saying Israel would not apologise for the assault.
"We don't want to apologise to Turkey. We are prepared to express remorse about the loss of human life.
"But we first want to protect our soldiers and we demand that Turkey recognise ... that the soldiers acted to defend themselves."