Late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s son Yuval proposed a peace initiative together with Koby Huberman, a businessman, in response to the Arab peace initiative first presented in 2002, which Israel rejected.

The 2002 initiative, presented by Saudi Arabia, would grant an undefined "normalcy" in relations between the Arab world and Israel in return for the Israeli surrender of all land captured during the Six Day War in 1967.

According to the Israeli media, Rabin and Huberman suggest drawing up an Israeli version of the Arab Peace Initiative as opposed to flatly rejecting it.

The Israeli Peace Initiative (IPI) has been promoted in the country among politicians, academics and businessmen, informally testing Palestinian and Israeli responses to its principles.

The initiative’s principles were published in the Israeli daily Haaretz as providing for a ‘viable’ Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and land swaps, Jerusalem as the incorporation of two capitals with arrangements for the holy basin, a solution for the refugees, mutual recognition of the two national identities non-prerequisite but as an outcome of negotiations, a reiteration of Israel’s principles regarding Arab civic equality and long-term security arrangements with international components.

The proposal will soon be published in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

With regards to Syria, the initiative suggests “phased withdrawals” and land swaps until the 1967 borders are finally reached. The process will also be accompanied with heavy security to “curb terrorists and paramilitary organisations.”

Rabin and Huberman mention Lebanon mainly in relation to security arrangements since the borders between the two countries “have already been established.”

“The other three IPI components present regional security mechanisms addressing common regional threats, a vision for regional economic development and parallel evolution toward regional recognition and normal ties,” write Rabin and Huberman.

The Palestinian authority has fundamentally rejected the concept of land swaps and the declared Jewish identity of Israel which automatically annuls two of the initiatives principles.

Furthermore, given Israel’s history and current practices in the Palestinian territories a “mutual recognition of the genuine national identities” seems highly implausible.

The recent move to identify Jerusalem as a whole as Israel’s top national priority shows an Israeli initiative contradictory to the one proposed by Rabin and Huberman.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/784.aspx