Netanyahu’s true intentions

Despite his surprising re-election for a fourth term as Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu is still in the midst of a loud outcry over his outrageous pronouncements on the eve of the election, which are likely to mar his tenure.

During his re-election campaign, he categorically dismissed the new Arab Israeli members of the Knesset in despicable racist terms and abandoned his earlier support for a Palestinian state on a small portion of historical Palestine, a former British mandate until 1948.

The Israeli leader warned his public that the Arab voters were going to the polls “in droves”, an assertion widely interpreted, according to The New York Times, “as an attempt to suppress the Arab vote” and to prompt more Jewish voters to the polls, since he was seemingly in a tight spot.

In another pre-election statement Netanyahu declared that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, a position that was obviously directed at right-wing Israeli voters.

After his victory, Netanyahu backtracked, claiming that he was misunderstood.

He invited a group of Arab voters to his house, a meeting that was aired on television, and also said that his position on a Palestinian state was misinterpreted, asserting that he is still supportive of a two-state solution, but concerned about the timing. He offered no explanations.

Netanyahu’s offensive remarks outraged US President Barack Obama whose relationship with the Israeli leader was never warm; in fact, it was “toxic”, according to The New York Times.

In a videotaped interview with The Huffington Post, Obama said: “I indicated to him that given his statements prior to the election, it is going to be hard to find a path where people are seriously believing that negotiations are possible.”

But it took a top aide to the president, White House Chief-of-Staff Denis McDonough, to spill the beans at last Monday’s conference in Washington of the liberal American Jewish organisation called J Street, which is often critical of Netanyahu and supports “an end to occupation [and the] two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Its president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, believes that “it’s time for the United States to restate the view it has always had that settlements are illegal, and it’s time to give action to words”.

McDonough told an audience of 3,000 J Street members: “In the end, we know what a peace agreement should look like. The borders of Israel and an independent Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps …. An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end and the Palestinian people must have the right to live and govern themselves in their own sovereign state … Israel cannot maintain military control of people indefinitely.

“That’s the truth. And as President Obama has said, neither occupation nor expulsion of Palestinians is the answer. Anything less than true peace will only worsen the situation…. That’s why we’re never going to give up on peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Another speaker at the conference, former US secretary of state James Baker, said that the chances of a two-state solution were diminished since Netanyahu’s re-election last week.

He further slammed Netanyahu’s “diplomatic missteps and political gamesmanship”, in Politico Magazine, saying that the prime minister’s “actions have not matched his rhetoric”.

A surprise participant at the J Street conference was Saeb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator, who seemed to welcome the fact that the Obama administration was to change its stance towards a UN role in settling the Palestinian question.

He said that the Palestinian Authority had decided to approach the UN because the Israeli prime minister was not “a two stater”.

His address was enthusiastically received at the conference, especially his line, “Occupation corrupts. We have to stand tall to end this occupation”, which received a standing ovation.

Netanyahu has to truthfully explain his position vis-à-vis the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, something he never did, unlike the Palestinian side, indeed all the members of the Arab League when they proposed the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.