No third party force needed, especially the UN.

Via JPost

Israel has rejected a Palestinian proposal to place NATO forces in the Jordan Valley instead of the IDF, as part of a final-status agreement.

The suggestion of using forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was made public earlier this week in a New York Times interview with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected that proposal, according to an interview with US Secretary of State John Kerry conducted by David Ignatius and published Saturday in The Washington Post.

“Netanyahu has made it clear he doesn’t want NATO,” Kerry said, but a possible third-party force “is something for the parties to work out,” Ignatius wrote.

An Israeli official confirmed for The Jerusalem Post that the article was accurate.

On Friday, former prime minister Ehud Olmert told Channel 2 that he, together with former defense minister Ehud Barak had already told the Americans during the 2008 Annapolis peace process that they were willing to withdraw the IDF from the Jordan Valley within the context of a final-status agreement. But he did not offer any details of that plan.

Olmert also said he believed – based on his conversations with Abbas – that when all the details will be worked out for a final-status agreement, the issue of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state could be resolved.

As part of a US-led ninemonth negotiating process that ends in April, Kerry is expected to unveil a “framework” document laying out the principles for a final-status agreement. It is expected to include issues such as the Jordan Valley and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

To author that document, Kerry has spoken with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, both on the phone and in person.

There is also some speculation that Netanyahu will meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington at the beginning of March (Obama is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia in March) when the prime minister travels there to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In Saturday’s Washington Post article, Kerry said the process of arriving at a two-state solution will take time but that a clear end goal is necessary.

“Everybody understands that it’s going to take some period of time for a transition,” he was quoted as saying. “That’s why it is phased… What is critical, I think, is to give people a sense that there can be an end of the conflict and an end of claims, that there is a framework within which it is all contained.”

On Friday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Likud Beytenu) endorsed Kerry’s work and a two-state solution, but said Israel would only accept a proposal that guaranteed its security.

The nine-month process began with negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian delegations, Liberman said, but at this point, direct talks have broken down, and each side is speaking solely with the US.