Israelis to propose new peace plan

JERUSALEM, April 5 (UPI) -- A group of prominent Israeli defense officials in Tel Aviv appears ready to unveil a proposal for a new peace initiative with the Arab world.

The group which includes the former heads of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and Israel Security Agency plan to reveal their proposal at a press conference Wednesday, The New York Times reported, noting it had obtained a copy of the initiative.

The proposal dubbed the Israeli Peace Initiative is a direct response to the Arab Peace Initiative issued by the Arab League in 2002 and 2007, the report said, and calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, the newspaper said.

The plan states that Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem would go to Israel and Arab ones to Palestine.

The Temple Mount would be under no national sovereignty but the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter in the Old City would be under Israeli rule, the Times said.

It also calls for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights in stages, the report said.

"We looked around at what was happening in neighboring countries and we said to ourselves, it is about time that the Israeli public raised its voice as well," Danny Yatom, a signer of the document and former head of Mossad, told the newspaper. "We feel this initiative can bring along many members of the public," he added.

Yaakov Perry the former head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said he sent a copy of the two page document to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who promised to read it.

"We are isolated internationally and seen to be against peace," Perry told the Times in a telephone interview. "I hope this will make a small contribution to pushing our prime minister forward. It is about time that Israel initiates something on peace," he said.