The peace deal Palestin President Mahmoud Abbas rejected in 2008: Former Israeli PM reveals ‘peace proposal map’

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has publicly revealed, for the first time, the map he presented to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the 2008 peace negotiations.

“This is the first time I am showing this map to the media,” Olmert states in the BBC documentary Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October, airing on Feb. 24.

Olmert recalls urging Abbas to accept the proposal, saying, “In the next 50 years, you will not find an Israeli leader who will offer what I am offering now. Sign it! Sign it and let’s change history!”

The map outlined the creation of a Palestinian state on 94 percent of the occupied West Bank. Israel would annex 4.9 percent of the West Bank but, in return, would transfer land near the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinian state.

Additionally, a tunnel or highway was proposed to connect the West Bank and Gaza.

Olmert’s plan also included a division of Jerusalem, with both Israel and Palestine claiming parts of the city as their capital.

The Old City and key religious sites would be placed under the administration of a trusteeship composed of Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the U.S.

The BBC noted that if the proposal had been implemented, numerous Jewish communities in the West Bank and Jordan Valley would have been evacuated, similar to Israel’s withdrawal from Gush Katif in Gaza in 2005.

According to Olmert, Abbas responded to the offer by saying, “Prime Minister, this is very serious. It is very, very, very serious.”

The map suggests that Olmert was largely willing to return to pre-1967 borders.

However, Rafiq Husseini, Abbas’s chief of staff at the time, explains in the documentary that the Palestinians did not take the proposal seriously, as Olmert was already facing corruption charges and expected to resign soon.