The former prime minister told the BBC that he had exclaimed, ‘Sign it and let’s change history!’ to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who refused.By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel NewsSixteen years after presenting a secret map to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas that conceded 94% of Judea and Samaria in exchange for a peace agreement, former prime minister Ehud Olmert has revealed it to the BBC.In an interview to be shown as part of the British broadcaster’s upcoming series called “Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October,” Olmert said that he met with Abbas in Jerusalem on September 16, 2008, showed him the map and implored him to approve it immediately.“Sign it! Sign it, and let’s change history!” he recalled saying.“This is the first time that I expose this map to the media,” he noted to the director, Norma Percy.While according to Olmert, Abbas had responded by saying that this was a “very serious” proposal, the Palestinian leader never got back to him about it.Rafiq al-Husseini, Abbas’ then-chief of staff, said in the documentary that the Palestinian delegation had laughed off the plan in the ride back to Ramallah, because they “knew this wasn’t going anywhere,” since Olmert “was a lame duck,” having already told the public that he was going to resign amidst a corruption investigation against him.The diagram envisioned Israel annexing only 4.9% of the heartland of the country that had been liberated in the 1967 Six Day War, encompassing only a few main settlement blocs.The Palestinians would receive equivalent areas in pre-1967 Israel to make up the difference by adding land abutting the borders of both Gaza and Judea and Samaria.Under Olmert’s proposal a whopping 58,000 Jews would have been evacuated from all the other villages and towns in the territory.This was over seven times the number of Jewish residents of the Gaza Strip who were forced out of their homes in the 2005 Disengagement in a process that had torn the country apart, and whose resettlement had barely begun, even three years later.There was a tunnel or road marked off to connect the Gaza Strip to the main PA territory in Judea and Samaria, although the coastal enclave was already controlled by the Hamas terror organization.In total negation of Israel’s official and long-held position, Jerusalem was to be divided, with each party claiming parts of it as its capital.A “trusteeship committee” consisting of Israel, the PA, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the U.S. were to oversee the administration of the “holy basin” of the Old City and its religious sites.Olmert said he had told Abbas, “For the next 50 years, you won’t find a single Israeli leader who will offer you what I’m offering now.”Although there has been for decades a Jewish “peace camp” in Israel that was prepared to give up a large part of Judea and Samaria, either with or without parts of Jerusalem, in order to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led terrorist invasion in which they slaughtered 1,200 and took 251 people hostage, this leftist voice has been silenced.In a January survey by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), 64% of the Jews polled opposed the creation of a Palestinian state “under any condition,” and a third supported Israeli annexation of the Gaza Strip.Another poll, taken right before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met U.S. President Donald Trump early this month, showed even greater opposition, with 71% opposing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria and almost 70% saying they want to extend Israeli sovereignty over this territory.Last July, the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly voted to reject Palestinian statehood in any form.“The Israeli Knesset opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state on any piece of land west of the Jordan River,” the resolution reads. “The existence of a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel will pose an existential threat to the State of Israel and its citizens, will further extend the Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict and be a source of destabilization for the entire region.”The post Olmert reveals 2008 map conceding 94% of Judea & Samaria to PA appeared first on World Israel News.