US Officials: Netanyahu Suggested Plan to Establish Palestinian State in Sinai

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony. December 21, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony. December 21, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
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US Officials: Netanyahu Suggested Plan to Establish Palestinian State in Sinai

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony. December 21, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony. December 21, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Weeks after rumors of an "Arab plan" to settle the Israeli-Palestinian struggle by establishing a Palestinian state in Sinai, Egypt, US administration's top officials revealed on Thursday that the plan was suggested by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Four years ago, Netanyahu asked the Obama administration to consider a plan in which Israel would annex large parts of the West Bank, and the Palestinians would in return receive land from Egypt in the northern part of Sinai.

The Prime Minister's Office issued a rushed statement denying the former officials' account, stating that "this story is not true."

The four officials declared that Netanyahu raised the idea with US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on a number of occasions, according to Haaretz.

The officials also said that Netanyahu told Obama and Kerry that in his view, it was possible to convince Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi to accept the idea. However, Egypt was direct in rejecting the plan, and US administration came to a conclusion that Palestinians would also reject it.

According to the officials, the plan suggested by Netanyahu to Obama and Kerry is somewhat similar to those mentioned in a number of recent news reports about the Trump administration’s peace plan.

The White House, however, strongly and consistently denied such report and confirmed that the peace plan “will benefit Israelis and Palestinians and will be revealed when it is done and the time is right.”

Netanyahu announced that he will meet President Trump in Washington in March, and maybe before that, to discuss several issues that concern both countries including the Arab-Israeli struggle.

But according to the former officials, Netanyahu himself first discussed the issue with Obama back in the Fall of 2014. “It started shortly after the 2014 Gaza war,” one of the officials said.

“Netanyahu came to meet Obama in the Fall of 2014, and his pitch was basically: ‘John Kerry’s peace talks fell apart a few months ago, we just had a war, and now the peace process is stuck. So I want to offer you a different kind of idea,” he added.

The Prime Minister told Obama and Kerry that under his new plan, Israel would annex a large part of West Bank. “He used the term ‘settlement blocs’ but didn’t provide a map that actually defines those blocs," one of the officials said.

But the idea was the majority of the West Bank would still eventually become a future Palestinian state, but the “compensation” given to the Palestinians for the land annexed by Israel would come not in the form of a land swap with Israel itself, but instead, through attaching northern Sinai to Gaza.

“We all thought this idea was a waste of time,” one of the officials said, adding: “we knew it would be a complete non-starter for the Palestinians – why would they trade agricultural lands in the West Bank, close to their largest cities, for sand dunes in Sinai?”

Another top official declared that northern Sinai contains one of the toughest battles against ISIS-inspired in the world. "Why would the Palestinians agree to take responsibility for it, in return for Israel getting to keep more of its settlements? It didn’t make sense to us,” he wondered.

According to the four officials, when the Obama administration asked Egyptian officials about the idea, the reply was negative.

In addition, the plan was not even discussed during the 2016 secret summit held in Aqaba, Jordan, and attended by Netanyahu, Kerry, Sissi and King of Jordan.



US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH

The United States will keep backing Syria’s government and has no “Plan B” to working with it to unite the war‑scarred country back together, still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence, US envoy Tom Barrack said on Monday.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barrack – Washington’s ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy for Syria, who is also on a short assignment in Lebanon – called last week’s Israeli strikes inside Syria “badly timed” and said they had “complicated efforts to stabilize the region.”

Barrack spoke in Beirut after more than a week of clashes in Sweida province between Druze militiamen and Sunni Bedouin tribes.

Over the weekend he brokered what he described as a limited ceasefire between Syria and Israel, aimed only at halting the fighting in Sweida. Syrian government troops have since redeployed in the area and evacuated civilians from both communities on Monday, he said.

Barrack told the AP that “the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but that “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

Regarding Israel’s strikes on Syria, Barrack said: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”

However, he said Israel’s intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”

Prior to the violence in Sweida, Israel and Syria had been in talks over security matters, while the Trump administration had been pushing them to move toward full normalization of diplomatic relations.

When the latest fighting erupted, “Israel’s view was that south of Damascus was this questionable zone, so that whatever happened militarily in that zone needed to be agreed upon and discussed with them,” Barrack said. “The new government (in Syria) coming in was not exactly of that belief.”

The ceasefire announced Saturday between Syria and Israel is a limited agreement addressing only the conflict in Sweida, he said. It does not address broader issues including Israel’s contention that the area south of Damascus should be a demilitarized zone.

In the discussions leading up to the ceasefire, Barrack said “both sides did the best they can” to reach agreement on specific questions related to the movement of Syrian forces and equipment from Damascus to Sweida.

He suggested that Israel would prefer to see Syria fragmented and divided rather than a strong central state in control of the country.

Later Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that Israel’s strikes “were the only way to stop the massacre of the Druze in Syria, the brothers of our brothers the Israeli Druze”.

Katz added: “Anyone who criticizes the attacks is unaware of the facts,” he continued. It was not clear if he was responding to Barrack’s comments.

Damascus has been negotiating with the Kurdish forces that control much of northeast Syria to implement an agreement that would merge the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces with the new national army.