In an interview with Haaretz on Thursday, four senior officials in the administration of former US President Barack Obama said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented in 2014 a plan to launch a state Palestinian Authority in northern Sinai and Gaza, in return for the approval of the PLO, to annex settlements in the West Bank to Israel.
According to Amir Typhon, a reporter for Haaretz in Washington, the four officials told him that Netanyahu briefed the Obama administration on the details of the plan after the end of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014 after the collapse of the settlement plan presented by then US Secretary of State John Kerry , To the Parties.
"Netanyahu presented the plan to Obama on the grounds that it was a response to the failure of Kerry's settlement plan," Netanyahu said.
"Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel agrees that the West Bank should be part of the Palestinian state, provided that the Palestinians agree to annex settlements to Israel.
According to the official, Netanyahu told the administration at the time that the compensation the Palestinians would receive in return for annexing the settlements would be to annex areas in northern Sinai to the Gaza Strip.
According to the four officials, the Obama administration viewed the plan as a "waste of time, given that the Palestinians can not agree to relinquish fertile agricultural land, in return for the sandy Sinai desert lands."
Another former US official suggested that Netanyahu's offer appeared to be an attempt to involve the Palestinians in the face of security challenges by putting them in charge of an area in which the terrorist "da'ash" organization is active, with all the implications of this challenge.
Despite the Obama administration's assertion that the chances of implementing the plan were "nil," the official insisted that his relations with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would allow him to persuade him to agree to the proposal.
US officials said that when Washington tried to ask the Egyptian administration whether to hold talks with Israel about the plan presented by Netanyahu, Cairo's response was negative.
According to Typhoon, it is clear from the plan that Obama administration officials have said it is very much like the plan that President Donald Trump is currently trying to promote, called the "Century Deal."
Although Netanyahu's office denied the truth in Haaretz, Eliahu Shahar, a political affairs correspondent for Israel Army Radio, had previously quoted officials in Netanyahu's office as saying in September 2014 that Sisi had been presented to both Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have launched a project to launch a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and northern Sinai, in exchange for the Palestinians' abandonment of the West Bank.
On February 13, 2017, the Israeli Minister of Communications, Ayoub Qara, the most Likud minister close to Netanyahu, wrote on his Twitter account that the Sisi had already drawn up a plan to establish a Palestinian state in Sinai and the Gaza Strip , Will exempt Israel from withdrawing from the West Bank and pave the way for a comprehensive peace with the "Sunni Alliance", revealing that Netanyahu will discuss the idea with Trump.
The leaks of the Israeli media about Sisi's approval for the establishment of a Palestinian state in northern Sinai, Hamas, led the right-wing leaders in Tel Aviv.
General Aryeh Eldad, one of the most prominent leaders of the far right, described this sissy offer as "the most generous" because "it allows the Jews to exercise their right as sovereigns on the West Bank." He said that the Israeli leadership should stick to the Sisi proposal, On the basis of which, and not to allow him to give up just because the Palestinians reject him.
In an article published in the Maariv newspaper in September 2014, Eldad urged Netanyahu to stick to the Sisi offer and to stress that Israel could not in any way agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.
Israeli commentator Amir Oren said that the Sisi's waiver of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia for money was "a precedent that leads to the belief that he will agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in northern Sinai for money."
In an article published in Ha'aretz in April 2016, Orn called for Saudi Arabia to enlist this proposal by granting it the right to oversee the holy places of Muslims in Jerusalem.
