Nup. In the current plan the Palestinians get an official Palestinian state and Israel will pretty much withdraw any existing occupation in the West Bank. A little haggling and they might get the whole West Bank and only a short term demilitarised period, even under the Netanyahu Government.
I disagree with that. Firstly the Palestinians will never get the whole West Bank. It is unthinkable that Israel would leave 300,000 of its citizens within the borders of a Palestinian state -- that is a recipe for disaster. It is equally absurd to think that Israel has either the will or the capacity to "evacuate" (a commonly used euphemism for expulsion) those 300,000 settlers from their homes. The only reasonable solution is to redraw the border. The Palestinians have recognised this in one for or another in various formal and informal talks.
As for the period of demilitarisation, I do not think that will be formally negotiable. What will be negotiated, in my opinion, is not the DURATION of demilitarisation but rather its extent. At the Taba summit the Palestinian negotiating team accepted in principle the idea of a Palestinian military with restricted capabilities in accordance with Israel's security demands, as well as (if I recall correctly) 2 or 3 Israeli listening posts to be established within their future territory. Naturally this isn't something they intend to boast about in the media - and it's not surprising they immediately pounced on this issue in order to portray Israel as using it to hinder peace; but this is more part of their PR campaign than a reflection of Palestinian policy in practice.
That is why I find all of this sudden outrage about Palestinian demilitarisation quite entertaining. You constantly hear hysterical zealots in the West who are trying to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.
With time, assuming the peace agreement holds, Israeli-Palestinian distrust will gradually fade and the exact provisions regarding limitations on Palestinian military capabilities will likely be relaxed informally. This has been the case, for example, in the peace treaty with Egypt. Despite the limitation placed upon the Egyptian troop presence on the Israeli border in the peace treaty between the two countries, Israel has agreed to allow for Egypt to boost its troop presence along the Israeli border well beyond the limit specified in the treaty as the two states no longer distrust each other so deeply and have a shared interest in ensuring that nothing and nobody crosses that border.
The real issue here, in my opinion, will be control over borders and airspace, over which the two sides have a genuine disagreement.
And what do you suggest? That fascists across the border provide security for the exact same people it wishes to eliminate? pfft
Of course not. Not only is that undesirable for Palestinians, it is equally undesirable for Israelis. That is why, in spite of all the talk of Palestinian demilitarization, the Israeli defence establishment has been so keen on the work being done by General Dayton in training the Palestinian security forces to a professional standard. Israel wants Palestine demilitarised not so that it can militarily dominate it (we've seen clearly that this doesn't work), but rather to avoid any threat against its citizens. I do not think that the defense establishment has any real desire to maintain its presence in the area indefinitely, and these Palestinian security forces provide them a "way out."
The idea is not to create a Palestinian state that has no ability to ensure order and stability -- that would leave Israel vulnerable to attack from non-state terrorist groups. Rather it's to create a state that can effectively police itself internally while not posing a security risk to Israel. And in a rather interesting turn of events, both sides now seem to want some sort of foreign troop presence on the border between future-Palestine and Israel (both are inclined towards an American military presene, if I recall correctly).
