A group of over 200 retired Israeli military and intelligence officials have offered a detailed plan of action to reach a settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians, criticizing the far-right government for not making any progress to that end.

The proposal in particular pushes for an immediate, full freeze in settlement expansion to “preserve conditions” that might lead to future Palestinian statehood, along with a formal recognition that occupied East Jerusalem will inevitably be part of a future independent Palestine.

As to the process for negotiating statehood, the plan recommends accepting the Arab Peace Initiative, a plan which offers Israel normalized ties with the entire Arab world in return for a withdraw from the occupied territories and a negotiated settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem.

All of these ideas are non-starters for the current far-right government, with even preliminary measures like a settlement freeze being loudly and repeated repudiated by virtually all of the top officials in the current government. After 14 solid years of ignoring the Arab Peace Initiative, the new proposal reveals that Israel’s security establishment doesn’t think it’s a bad bargain in the first place, and it is the political leadership that is keeping peace from being realized.

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