would agree to make them part of a Palestinian state. The second principle was that

/ BARAK / 60 would agree to make them part of a Palestinian state. The second principle was that “Jerusalem will remain united.” It would not be cut into Jewish and Arab halves as had happened between 1948 and 1967. That, I knew, might prove tougher to carry through on. But even if I had to concede a degree of Palestinian control in parts of east Jerusalem, I expected to be able to retain Israeli sovereignty over the city. The third principle was that there would be “no foreign army west of the Jordan River.” In other words, if we did hand back at least the major part of the West Bank, it would be demilitarized and we would have security control over the Jordan Valley. Finally, we would not “‘accept responsibility for the birth of the refugee problem and its solution.” Though there could be a “right of return” into a new Palestinian state, we would not agree to rewrite the history of the 1948 war by sanctioning the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians inside the State of Israel. I think it was the very fact we were talking about a comprehensive peace agreement that made it so hard for my Orthodox and right-of-center coalition partners. They didn’t see the attraction of coming to final terms of peace. They knew it would mean concessions. There would be a Palestinian state. We would give up the great majority of Biblical Judaea and Samaria. While most of the settlers would remain, since they lived in the major blocs, those in more isolated settlements around the West Bank would have to be moved. They saw the prospect of a final peace only in terms of what we were giving up. They didn’t see what we would gain: not just peace, and international recognition and endorsement for it. But normalcy: the central aim of Zionism. Jews living in a state like any other. Ever since 1967, we had been in control of the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. That was bad for them. But it had been bad for us too. Fifty-two years after the birth of our state, we still didn’t have a permanent, internationally recognized border. Rather than dealing with our economic and social issues like other states, we were beset by internal divisions that were in no small part a result of our unresolved conflict with the Palestinians. Shas, the National Religious Party and Sharansky’s Yisrael ba’Aliyah were all threatening to pull out of the government because of the summit. Nothing I said could change their minds. Sharansky was the first to declare he was leaving. A few hours later, Shas and the NRP followed suit. If the Likud mustered the required 61 votes for the no-confidence motion it was introducing before I got on the plane to the US, the government would fall. If the parties that had left the coalition, with a total of 28 seats, went along with Arik Sharon, it wouldn’t be close. As if that 346 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011817