William Sebastian Cohen, The Leaders Project, U.S. Department of State photo.
Before going to the conference I received a phone call from Giora Eiland, Israel’s National Security Adviser. He asked to meet with me prior to the conference. We met and he presented a plan, which I was very familiar with proposing a four-party land swap between Israel-Egypt-Palestine-Jordan that would enable Israel to annex the settlement blocks in the West Bank.
The idea was creative, but I said it was a non-starter – Egypt would not give one grain of sand of Sinai to the Palestinians. I told him that I was reluctant to present the plan to Gamal Mubarak because I am very familiar with the Egyptian attitude on trading land.
Fortunately, Mubarak did not show up at the conference and I did not have to make the presentation. It was a non-starter then, and it is a non-starter today. People who don’t want to seriously and genuinely confront Israel’s bi-national one state reality search for fantasy dreams and proposals that avoid reality.
