A Coda On The Speech
Perhaps the most depressing thing about it is how much it reminds one of Menachem Begin's response to Anwar Sadat in 1977. You get the feeling that the words are not simply tactical but come from Netanyahu's deepest convictions. Yes, he has declared a willingness to entertain the idea of a Palestinian state, so long as it is demilitarized. (For the record, Palestinian leaders in Fatah and the West Bank have never made an issue about having an army big enough to pose a threat to Israel--again, read the Geneva Initiative--and have often called for international forces to replace the IDF.) But he couched the point in Revisionist historical rhetoric that seems more an effort to wrest key Congresspeople from Obama than address the Arab world. My friend Sam Bahour in Ramallah told me he thought perhaps Hamas had written the speech, for all the good it would do Abbas.
Netanyahu has put, as Begin put, so many conditions on getting to a Palestinian state that one can understand the reluctance of Palestinian negotiators to get back in the room: recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people (readers of this blog do not require me to elaborate on why, as stated, this is impossible), Jerusalem, united, as the capital of Israel, natural growth of settlements, and so forth. Television commentators here immediately pronounced the speech a concession to Washington, at the same time as wondering if Washington will buy it. My unsolicited advise to Obama and Mitchell: put the speech in your pocket, declare it a breakthrough, and (as I said earlier today) start presenting details of a deal without imagining that negotiations will produce one.
For the record, the renewed efforts that includes administration figures within the DoS, DoD, the NSC and the WH to oust General Jim Jones are directly tied to Jones' rejection of Israeli claims re the security situation vis a vis the WB.
As Carolyn Glick reminds us:
"
Aside from overseeing his deputies, Mitchell has also been charged with leading a new administration program aimed at undermining Israel's ability to make independent military and intelligence decisions. Back in 2008, when Obama's National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones served as then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's special adviser on Israeli-Palestinian security issues, he authored a report calling for the US to assess what Israel's "real" security interests in Judea and Samaria are and to limit US support to Israel to filling those necessarily minimal interests. Jones's report, which rejected all Israeli claims in Judea and Samaria and underplayed the strategic significance of Palestinian rejection of Israel's right to exist, was viewed as deeply hostile toward Israel, and the Olmert government prevailed on the Bush administration to set it aside.
This is not the case today, however. Obama shares Jones's view that Israel's perception of its security needs is exaggerated."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371077760&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Needless to say, the same folks don't want Jones in the way of presenting the Israeli version of Iran's capabilities and intentions, either.
June 14, 2009 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jones has real baggage: He's an American patriot.
No wonder Ms. Glick hates him.
June 14, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This has nothing to do with Carolyn Glick per se.
She is simply reprising the information available in the Israeli media at the time that Jones was compiling his report. A report that was thrown down the rabbit hole by our government "representatives" without a peep of protest.
June 14, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somehow Netanyahu's proposal rated a CNN tickle in my email. Let's boil it down: He made a proposal he knows no one will accept to create the illusion of making a serious proposal. Seems it fooled CNN, or, at least, editors at CNN hope it fools us? Or... mollifies the rest of the world for awhile? After playing for time this long, what's left on the table? How terrible is the inevitability that must forever be delayed by this not-so-fancy footwork?
June 14, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
"recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people (readers of this blog do not require me to elaborate on why, as stated, this is impossible)"
I have been a reader, and would nonetheless like some elaboration.
This does not seem to me to be the time for insisting that semantic points be non-negotiable. Indeed, I would rather expect Mitchell & Co to look for semantic-nuancing as a means of more indirectly and gingerly working towards the really substantive and intractable issues.
June 14, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
San Fernando Curt is correct when he writes: "Let's boil it down: He made a proposal he knows no one will accept to create the illusion of making a serious proposal."
When you get right down to it, this is what has been going on for fifty years. It's time for us to withdraw from the process and let the settlers and the pals on the west bank work this out for themselves.
June 14, 2009 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink