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from https://www.timesofisrael.com/declassified-protocols-indicate-golda-meir-considered-palestinian-statehood/

Declassified protocols indicate Golda Meir considered Palestinian statehood Documents show that former prime minister gave serious thought to
possibility of formation of a Palestinian entity, despite public comments
By TOI STAFF
31 July 2023, 10:56 pm
20
Israeli premier Golda Meir, during a press conference at the Israeli
embassy in Rome, Italy, on January 15, 1973. (AP Photo/ Giuseppe Anastasi)

Former prime minister Golda Meir considered the possibility of the
formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel three years after the
Six Day War, protocols published by Haaretz on Monday show, shedding new
light on the premier who famously said, “There’s no such thing as Palestinians.”

Last month, the Israel State Archives declassified top secret
transcriptions of a meeting Meir held in October 1970 with senior
ministers, including defense minister Moshe Dayan and education minister
Yigal Allon, in which the possibility of a Palestinian state was discussed.

“It will be necessary to leave the Arabs of Judea and Samaria an option
to earn self-determination at a later stage, if and when it suits us,”
Meir said at the start of the meeting. “In other words, there will be
another country [alongside Israel].”

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Meir did say she viewed such a possibility as drastic. She also noted
that she did not care what the name of the country would be.

The protocol shows that Meir considered potential political arrangements
for a Palestinian state: as a state that is member to a confederation
with Israel, Jordan, or both, or as a completely independent country.
However, the prime minister seemed troubled by these scenarios, saying
that such arrangements would be created in order to destroy Israel.


Interestingly, the meeting took place just weeks following “Black September,” the month-long conflict between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Jordanian kingdom that saw the PLO banished to
Lebanon and brought to one of its historical low points. Nevertheless,
Meir said that “if [PLO chief Yasser Arafat] becomes prime minister of Jordan, we will negotiate with him. Arafat as the head of a terrorist organization — no. But if he becomes head of a government that he’ll represent as a Palestinian, then fine.”

Meir, who throughout her career refused to recognize the Palestinians’
right to self-determination, also said at the meeting that she had
become “open-minded on the issue, even though [my mind] closed right
after the Six Day War, but I’m ready to reopen my mind and listen if there’s a hint of a hint of a hint of hope of there being a small state
in Judea and Samaria, and maybe Gaza.”


Then-Israeli foreign minister Golda Meir arrives in Nairobi for an
official diplomatic visit in 1963, with an El Al plane in the
background; as posted on Open Sea. (Courtesy)
The protocol continues with a discussion of the details of a potential Palestinian state, with the prime minister completely rejecting the idea
of Jerusalem serving as the capital of such a nation. Meir explained
that the Israeli War of Independence allowed Israel to offer minimal concessions in case of negotiations with the Palestinians.

“Why is Jaffa less Palestinian than any other place? And that was in
their land. Will we give it to them? I’m prepared to go pray and to
thank God that they declared war against us in 1948,” she said. “How
would we have lived with it? I don’t know, but in the end, it was not us
that declared war.”

Like Meir, the other ministers were receptive, but highly cautious
regarding the idea, with Allon saying that no “Balfour Declaration”
should be made on the subject — a reference to the 1917 statement in
which the British government announced its support for the founding of a “Jewish home” in Ottoman-ruled Mandatory Palestine.

“I don’t suggest encouraging a Palestinian state,” the former Palmach commander said. “Rather, in the long term, a peace contract that will
keep options open.”

Notably, Allon also said that the existence of the Palestinian people
was “not up to me and not up to Golda Meir. If they see themselves as Palestinians, then we can say 1,000 times they’re not, but they will
remain [Palestinians] regardless.”

Yisrael Galili, a minister without portfolio, said: “I’ve felt for a
while, and recently with greater intensity, that what we call ‘the Palestinian problem’ is starting to bother, morally and politically, the
best of our people, including commanders, major generals, and all who
carry the IDF on their back.

“This shows that the problem isn’t something that was imported here, but rather it has an origin, it isn’t artificial.”

Following a long political career in which she served as labor minister
and foreign minister, Meir served as Israel’s fourth prime minister from
1969 to 1974. She resigned due to public criticism following the 1973
Yom Kippur War and died in 1978.

A biopic on Meir, “Golda,” is set to be released in August. It focuses
on Meir’s conduct throughout the Yom Kippur War. Meir is played by Helen Mirren.

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joe
21 hours ago
Doesn't matter... the Arabs would have just continued saying NO, like
they have been since the birth of Islam circa 630 CE.


imlang
18 hours ago
The PLO changed their charter in 1968 after the Six Day War to state
that they no longer wanted Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, for a
state, they wanted all of Israel. Therefore, there is no way they would
have accepted the state suggested by Golda Meir.

chazhoosier
21 hours ago
The question today, from the Israeli side, has become whether Israel
would ever give full rights and self-determination to Palestinians in
the ever distant possibility of them laying down arms and pledging peace forever. Unfortunately it is not at all clear that Israel would ever
give Palestinians freedom. Dhimmitude is all Israel would offer, and
that is no peace plan at all.

And yes, Palestinian terrorism is bad.

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