Barak Spells Out Land He’Ll Concede For Peace Treaty

Preparing Israelis for substantial land concessions, Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday all but offered the Palestinians an independent state and said he would give them suburbs around contested Jerusalem.

Israeli hard-liners criticized him, but the Palestinians said his proposals don’t go far enough.

In statements made at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting and released by his office, Barak outlined what he would - and wouldn’t - concede in a blueprint of a final peace treaty, due next month.

Barak said he would turn over West Bank land that would give the Palestinians territorial contiguity, something Palestinians see as necessary for statehood.

“No serious person believes that the entity that will be created will be a protectorate or autonomy made up of various noncontiguous patches on the map without its residents being able to leave its territory freely,” Barak told ministers. He did refer directly to a Palestinian “state.”