(DEBKAfile).DEBKAfile's political sources reveal Binyamin Netanyahu's planned launch of his second term as prime minister with a flurry of diplomacy. Thursday, April 2, the day after his government's inception, trips to Cairo and Jordan had already been scheduled for talks with president Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II, followed by a visit to Washington to meet President Barack Obama and to Moscow for talks with prime minister Vladimir Putin.
Netanyahu is considering becoming the first Israeli prime minister to visit the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
This goodwill visit, if approved by the security authorities, would denote the new government's recognition of the PA and its willingness to cooperate in strengthening the Palestinian administration politically and economically in accordance with the Middle East road map – though not the Annapolis formula of two states for the two peoples.
According to our sources, Netanyahu held long discussions before deciding on the gestures or "concessions" he would offer his Egyptian and Jordanian hosts.
The Israeli prime minister has become convinced that he and the Egyptian president have many mutually profitable fields of strategic cooperation to discuss. He was apparently won over by defense minister Ehud Barak's proposition, followed during his service with the Olmert government, whereby strategic cooperation with Cairo, pursued discreetly and at the highest levels, must be the linchpin of Israel's Arab relations.
