Is Palestinian autonomy plan back on Likud table?

The political discourse in Israel’s ruling Likud Party is undergoing a refreshing change. After proposing all kinds of populist laws and issuing all sorts of populist declarations, one Knesset member is trying to get his party to discuss a diplomatic plan designed to serve as an alternative to the vision of the Oslo Accord and the two-state solution.

On Jan. 14, Yoav Kisch, a former air force pilot and now a Knesset member for the Likud, presented an “autonomy plan” that he formulated over the past few weeks. Now he is trying to bring it up for discussion in the Likud Party’s governing institutions. Kisch claims that it makes no sense for the largest party on the right to reject the two-state solution without having a comprehensive diplomatic vision for resolving the conflict with the Palestinians along those lines. This, he continues, is especially necessary for “the day after the Obama administration.”

According to his plan, those territories in the West Bank in which Palestinians live — some 40% of the total territory — will be declared an autonomous Palestinian entity, to be run by an elected Palestinian council. This council will deal with civil issues such as transportation, law, the economy and water, while security will remain in Israeli hands. Kisch said that this will ensure that no one, whether Palestinian or Jewish, will be uprooted from their homes in the West Bank.

Kisch decided to announce his plan just before the launching of the second Paris conference Jan. 15. With the diplomatic process in the spotlight again, if only for a moment, this timing was supposed to be to his advantage. But then the news from Europe was overshadowed by the investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dealings and their potentially dramatic political implications. That, if anything, could reshuffle the Israeli political deck.