Palestinians To Inherit
Temple Mount Under Obama’s Plan
The Obama administration has quietly presented a plan in which the Palestinian Authority and Jordan will receive sovereignty over the Temple Mount while Israel will retain the Western Wall below, according to a senior PA negotiator who spoke to this column.
The proposed plan is part of the basis for U.S.-brokered talks that are set to commence in Washington next week after Secretary of State John Kerry announced that both Israel and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to open negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
Israel has not agreed to the U.S. plan over the Temple Mount, with details still open for discussion, stated the PA negotiator.
The negotiator, who is one of the main Palestinian figures leading the Arab side of the talks, further divulged Kerry’s proposed outline for a Palestinian state as presented orally to Israel and the PA. He said Jordan has been invited to play a key role in the discussions surrounding both the Temple Mount and Jerusalem, parts of which the PA will ultimately receive.
Regarding the rest of Jerusalem, Kerry’s plan is to rehash what is known as the Clinton parameters. That formula, pushed by Bill Clinton during the Camp David talks in 2000, called for Jewish areas of Jerusalem to remain Israeli while the Palestinians will get sovereignty over neighborhoods that are largely Arab. Most Arab sections are located in eastern Jerusalem.
Concerning the strategic Jordan Valley, Obama’s proposal calls for international forces to maintain security along with unarmed Palestinian police forces, the PA negotiator said. Israel will retain security posts in some strategic areas of the Jordan Valley, according to the leaked plan.
When it comes to the West Bank, Israel is expected to evacuate about 90 percent of its Jewish communities currently located in the territory, as outlined in Kerry’s plan.
Israel would retain strategic security posts along with the West Bank’s main blocs – Maale Adumin, Ariel, and Gush Etzion. In return, Obama is calling for an exchange of territory with the Palestinians in other locations inside Israel, with discussion being open for the Palestinians to possibly receive land in the Israeli Negev in the country’s south.
The PA negotiator further said Israel rejected a Palestinian request that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree not to place the final peace plan up for referendum in the Knesset.
The PA negotiator, meanwhile, said Netanyahu agreed that Israel will enact a temporary freeze on all Jewish construction in the West Bank outside the main settlement blocs as a goodwill gesture. According to Israeli sources, such a freeze has largely already been in place for several months now.
Who’s Behind The Trayvon Martin Protests?
Dream Defenders, the main group that has been leading the protest movement surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, was spawned by activists employed by a who’s who of the race-hijacking radical left.
From the socialist-oriented SEIU union to ACORN to Occupy to a litany of George Soros-funded organizations, the deep connections behind Dream Defenders raises questions about the motivation of an organization that claims to be a grassroots effort working to oppose racism.
Dream Defenders has been leading Martin protests since the onset and has been credited with agitating for George Zimmerman’s arrest. The group was behind the protests that blockaded the Sanford Police Department, demanding that the police chief be fired for failing to bring charges against Zimmerman.
The small Community Relations Service at Eric Holder’s Justice Department facilitated a meeting between Dream Defenders and city officials that resulted in a Justice review of the police department.
The group is now organizing protests in the wake of Zimmerman’s acquittal. On Tuesday, Dream Defenders demonstrated outside the Seminole County Capitol building and other locations.
Dream Defenders bills itself as a nonviolent sustainable network of youth and student leaders fighting for social change. The group says it trains youth and students in civil disobedience, direct action and civic engagement.
The group is made up of students and recent graduates from several Florida universities and is openly backed by SEIU, the ACLU and the Soros-supported Southern Poverty Law Center.
The groups have held joint initiatives on many occasions. In January, for example, Dream Defenders, the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center held a community town hall meeting in Tallahassee “to discuss the issue of keeping our children in the school system and out of the juvenile justice system.”