The "Piece Plan" is not a "Peace Plan"

On Saturday the sixth annual Saban Forum began in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The two-day forum runs through Monday, and is supposed to be a dialogue between senior officials from both countries on US-Israel relations and Middle East strategic issues such as the Iranian threat, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, will be held behind closed doors.

Attending are former US president Bill Clinton, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham - the highest-level US delegation ever to attend the conference.

Among the Israeli participants are Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) director Yuval Diskin and Director of Military Intelligence General Amos Yadlin.

The delegates are scheduled to meet with Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer to discuss economic development.

Unique to this year's event, the delegates travelled today to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad.

Founded in 2004, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy has been working to promote independent policy dialogue between Israel and the US. Founder Haim Saban called the timing of the event "a critical moment in US-Israel relations."

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat announced Sunday that the PA they is preparing to ask the United Nations to recognize an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, without Israel's consent because they are losing faith in the peace talks. - A senior Palestinian official told Fox News that the Palestinian Authority plans to call for Palestinian statehood through a UN resolution in the next few weeks -- a similar maneuver to that by which Israel was created.

Despite widespread assumptions the U.S. would veto any such U.N. Security Council resolution, the PA negotiator said that in initial discussions, the Obama administration did not threaten to veto their conceptual unilateral resolution.

"There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral attempts outside that framework will unravel the existing agreements between us and could entail unilateral steps by Israel," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a high level gathering of Israeli and American policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem on Sunday night.

Both Palestinians and some Israelis believe that there is growing support in the international community for such a measure.

Asked to comment on the plan, an American official said that such a UN resolution, while not a cure-all, could be expanded upon eventually. Still, he added: "It's a measure that would make you feel good for five minutes. Then what?"

The Palestinians seek an independent state that includes the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

The Palestinians already declared independence unilaterally on Nov. 15, 1988. The declaration was recognized by dozens of countries, but never implemented on the ground.

For Israel, the creation of a Hamas-controlled, Iranian-influenced Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria—the heartland of the Jewish people and key to Jewish national security—would amount to national suicide.

But G-D has only one plan, because unlike man, he sees the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:9-10). We don’t have to look far in the Bible to see that Israel is in His eternal plan. He doesn’t have a “Piece Plan” - he has a “Peace Plan” - for Israel and the whole world.