An Israeli politican asks the $64,000 question

I have never been a fan of Israeli politician Yossi Beilin. Usually his speeches make me cringe and aggravate me to no end but this report in the Jerusalem Post made me smile:

Meretz MK Yossi Beilin on Thursday called on European countries to declare how many Palestinian refugees and their descendants they would be willing to absorb as part of any future peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

"It is important that we know now how many Palestinian refugees [third] countries are willing to absorb, so that when we get to the critical moment [of a peace agreement] we will be prepared for such an eventuality, and be able to carry it out," Beilin said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

The dovish lawmaker made the remarks one day after he told a group of European ambassadors at a closed-door meeting of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that each of their countries needed to decide what their quota would be for absorbing Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

In the interview, Beilin conceded that only a "certain, not large" number of Palestinian refugees and their descendants would be willing to go to third countries as part of a peace agreement, with the bulk choosing to be resettled in a future Palestinian state or remain in the countries where they are currently living. Nevertheless, he said it was important for such information to be known in advance of any future accord, even if it were only a symbolic move, to be ready for such a solution to the problem, partial though it may be. Beilin said that Europeans have never given a "clear picture" of how many refugees - if any - they would be willing to absorb as part of a future peace accord, and that no "affirmative answer" has been received on the issue until now.

And the EU response:

EU spokeswoman Christina Gallach said Thursday that it was premature to respond to such a proposal at this time. "This is not something that has entered into the pipelines of practical considerations, and I am not aware of specific discussion of this issue," she said in a telephone interview from Brussels.

I bet the suggestion of settling potentially millions of Palestinians in EU countries didn’t warm the cackles of any European heart. Really, Beilin constantly surprises me and makes me ask - what’s next?