Netanyahu: How To Say "NO" In 3000 Words
3000 words of "NO."
I'm not going over the Netanyahu speech piece by piece because it does not merit that kind of scrutiny: The President asked for one thing above all, a settlement freeze, and Netanyahu just ignored the request.
The mainstream media is touting Netanyahu's support for a Palestinian state. He didn't offer it. He endorsed alternately a "state" and an "entity" without any of the trappings of statehood except an anthem. He even referred to the land where that entity thing would be located as "Judea and Samaria," a term no one except the Israeli right uses for the West Bank. In fact, the Israeli government only began using it when Menachem Begin came to power to send a clear signal to the world that there is no Palestine. It is "Judea and Samaria." It's the Biblical heartland and it is all ours.
The demand to recognize Israel "as a Jewish state" is something that didn't even occur to Begin. He, like all previous prime ministers, only demanded "recognition of Israel." He understood that countries don't recognize other countries "as" anything. The United State recognizes Latvia as Latvia, not as a "Latvian state." Same with every other country in the world. This new demand was devised because Netanyahu understands that Palestinians will never accept it because it negates their standing in a land they have inhabited from time immemorial.
In short, Netanyahu knows that no Palestinian with an ounce of self-respect could possibly accept his terms. That's the point. Getting them to "no," where he already is.
The ball is in Obama's court. As we 60's kids used to say, "the whole world is watching."
Yes, Bibi's a jerk.
Problem is, we don't treat him the way we treat other jerks around the world.
There's a very simple thing that needs to be done here... cut off all aid to Israel and impose trade sanctions until its government forges a 2 state solution.
That's actually nice treatment. Were it any other country we'd just invade it, depose its government, impose a two state solution and debate forever about when to bring our troops home.
June 14, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is very likely aware of how few days he would have left if he actually did what you suggest. These people play hardball.
The simplest thing he could do, and by far the most effective thing, is to stop any vetoes of UN security council resolutions referring to Israel.
June 14, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama and Rahm had to assume going in that Bibi would flip them off.
They say freeze, he says thanks and he favors a grand strategy for truly lasting peace (i.e., no freeze and drop dead), then they have their next move ready.
U.N. game-playing probably isn't it.
June 15, 2009 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The strongest move is just to ignore Bibi. Tzipi is quite happy to act like the PM. If Obama moves forward with negotiations without the Israelis, that omission alone will bring down Netanyahu. Obama doesn't have to threaten anything.
June 15, 2009 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am intrigued by this comment, mythbuster. It answers (or valiantly attempts to?) what I was just asking in another thread, i.e., what the hell to do next:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/16/bibis_baby_step_what_next_after_netanyahus_speech/index.php#comment-3499856
June 16, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The UN Security Council is not a game playing field. If the US were to stop its vetoes of resolutions there, Israel could find itself totally isolated in the world, not a good position at all. This isn't something to threaten to do, it is something to actually do.
A major part of our problem in the Middle East is that we have for decades said one thing, but then winked and agreed in secret to entirely different things. If Obama truly wants to be an honest broker in that area of the world, he needs to actually act, and not just talk and wink. I think that may be just what he will do.
June 15, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought I was the only one in the world who observed that.
Letting Netanyahu get off without so much as a "stfu" after using inflammatory religious/theological rhetoric intended to piss everyone off - annoys me. Isn't this the tribalism we complain about in the Arab world?
He's been very rhetorically belligerent and really when you step back and look at it, so has N. Korea.
Sadly, I think we may have gotten a grown-up for President - finally - but he's only one.
I've heard people say that Saddam was necessary to rule a tribal society. Now I'm beginning to wonder if the U.S. needs an asshole President because all his counterparts are assholes themselves.
June 15, 2009 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
He just needs to be committed to playing hard if that is what is needed to win. He is and he will.
June 15, 2009 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Americans are reputed to be rather slow-witted, naive and too lazy to figure anything out ... so it is the work of a minute to fake them out with a recipe of 50% gobble-dee-gook and 50% sneering contempt.
Peace is not on the schedule : peace would mean drawing a border and no more settlements ... there you go, folks ... no peace now or ten years from now.
Anyone want to bet a coke this situation will be no nearer to peace ten years from now ? Strange - no one ever wants to take my money or a coke.
Meanwhile Mr BN is working with the people who we just threw out of government ... working full time to undermine our new president by whatever means possible.
June 14, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you mean coca-cola, where do I pick it up. Obama is different and he will play like a grownup, i.e., result-oriented not process-oriented.
June 15, 2009 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Netanyahu isn't serious. One can't be serious about creating a Palestinian state of any kind, even the Israel-dominated principality Netanyahu is talking about, while at the same time calling for the expansion of Israeli colonies on the land on which that state would have to stand. Netanyahu might as well have taken the day off, and declined to open his mouth.
Is the ball in Obama's court? That would suggest Netanyahu is in some sort of tennis match with Obama. But Netanyahu isn't even in the same game. Israel doesn't get a veto on the existence of a Palestinian state in Palestine.
Is the whole world watching? Not today. Despite eight posts on Netanyahu at TPM Cafe, most of the world is watching the much more riveting events in Iran, not Netanyahu's tedious gas.
June 14, 2009 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
After Ahmadinejad's triumph and Bibi's speech, you and Israel Policy Forum and J street and all the rest of the lefties have lost all credibility with the Obama administration.
From now on you'll be dispensing advice from a shoeshine stand...where you can demonstrate your admittedly awesome boot-licking skills.
June 14, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose this is intended to mean something? Or is it just intended as an all purpose insult? It doesn't matter anyway, insults are just babble when they come from those you have no respect for.
June 14, 2009 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The first sentence is a simple factual statement. The second is ridicule. It was meant for those who understand English, not for you.
June 14, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ordinary is blogger ridicule from your home in California all you can offer the Jewish State?
You too could have your slimy boots licked as a member of the IDF.
June 15, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
West bank settlers, their dupes, and their tools, are known for hypocrisy above all else. So does our token ordinary-settler-fanatic-bootlicking rep here call others boot-lickers.
June 15, 2009 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Iranian People Speak
The Iranians love Mad Mahmoud and the Israelis like Bibi. If I were you Alfred E. I would try massive doses of laxatives. That's a lot cheaper than a shrink.
June 15, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mahmoud is Mad. Bibi is a Yahoo.
Mahmoud is mad because his body lives in the year 2009 whereas his mind lives in the year 869.
Bibi is a yahoo because the bulldozer of history stands in front of him, motor all revved up, about to crush him and he refuses to get out of the way.
June 15, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bullshit. They'll never accept it because if they do, they'll implicitly be saying that they have no plans to use the state they'll be granted in the West Bank and Gaza as a staging ground for the final takeover and elimination of Israel. This is a goal that the Palestinian leadership still winks at, in order to appease the rejectionists.
Once again, MJ is willing to swallow any crap the Palestinians say, while offering no such latitude to Israel.
June 15, 2009 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brad is upset. Brad is conflicted. I'm a liberal. I'm a Democrat. But I support colonialism. What to do?
What he'll do is stick with Bibi and vote GOP in 2012. The Israel Firsters will bot vote for Obama next time, causing Obama's % of Jewish vote to drop from 78 to 75%. Nassau County could be in danger.
June 15, 2009 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ: He's upset because a safe and secure Israel becomes part of the Middle East, not the focal point of the Middle East.
South Korea is important. But in many ways it will be less important to the US when North Korea changes. (How much do we hear about Taiwan now?)
Many of these people really fear a normal Middle East. They might have to actually acknowledge that Palestinians are people too!
June 15, 2009 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
As always, MJ is unable to contain his urge to be nothing but a cheap hack - impugning others motivations and hurling silly insults while continuing to post dishonest and sometimes downright nutty commentary.
What a shame.
June 15, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"After Ahmadinejad's triumph and Bibi's speech, you and Israel Policy Forum and J street and all the rest of the lefties have lost all credibility with the Obama administration."
Sure, all the lefties promised that Ahmedinejad will loose elections and Bibi will not be delivering any speeches.
At least, in such an alternate reality this utterance would have sense.
June 15, 2009 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Alfred E. was sure that the Iranians would toss out "Mad Mahmood" and the Israelis would just lie down and withdraw from the settlements (what he said was "if the government tells them to they'll all leave. the few that remain can be easily removed by the IDF"). After what's happened would you continue to take advice from such a person?
Well, maybe you would. But the administration won't. How much does his reputation tarnish others on the Left? A lot I think. Just look at Weiss's babbling at the top of today's front page and compare it to the the Washington Post poll I linked to titled "The Iranian People Speak". Like any poll its not definitive and others have posted credible contrary arguments. But the administration will now be looking with a very jaundiced eye at anything which comes from the Left.
June 15, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Netanyahu's sound bites matter much less than what comes next. The ball certainly does appear now to be in the court of the Obama team. Thanks for continuing to keep up us to date, M.J., especially with the inside Washington angle.
One point still perplexes me. I asked about it already on Mr. Avishai's blog post below ("Coda"), but haven't had a response there yet.
Why is "the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state" anything more than a tempest in teapot?
I understand that Netanyahu is only raising this in order to have a pretext for inaction after the Palestinians categorically reject it, and I also realize that it is a bizarre and unusual, but for the Likudniks a typically unjustifiable BS demand.
But who the heck cares what Israel is called? If it wants to be called a "Kibitizing Kibbutz State" so what? If Latvia wanted to be known as a "Herringbone" state, how would that matter a whit to anything in the real world? What possible substance could there be to such juvenile semantic games? Maybe I am somehow missing something here, but I tend to regard this as an example of mule-stubborn-stupidity that needs a intelligent mature outsider (Mitchell?) to come by on, offer a distracting sweet or two to the feuding kids, while slowing and patiently escorting them away from meaninglessness name-calling.
June 15, 2009 3:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "Jewish State" demand is code for abandoning the right of return and recogning the Jewish claim to the land; two things the Palestinian leadership has been unwilling to do.
June 15, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The "Jewish State" demand is code for abandoning the right of return and recogning the Jewish claim to the land; two things the Palestinian leadership has been unwilling to do."
AG - Can you tell me the borders of the Jewish Claim to the land the Palestinians are suppossed to recognize?
June 15, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is "the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state" anything more than a tempest in teapot?
In a 'Jewish State", Jews may need to remain in the population majority at least of voters, they may have more rights, privileges and opportunities than non-Jews.
There are Jewish-only housing, Jewish-only settlements, roads, farms, even Jewish (grown) oranges.
June 15, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for trying guys, but I still have trouble seeing the substance here. If somebody wants to use their own "coded" definition for a phrase, how does than prevent someone else agreeing to the phrase and using a standard dictionary definition instead? I don't expect the Palestinians to respond publicly at this point in any more accommodating manner than Netanyahu (e.g. with anything less than his rigidity and smokescreening), but what happens publicly is only a small part of what really matters, it seems to me.
I can see why Palestinians would not want to agree to no right of return as a precondition now, or anytime later prior to a lot of negotiating on other things, but "right of return" is not precluded by "Jewish state" in any normal dictionary definition. It would only mean that in practice IF (a) there WERE a fully granted and fully exercised return (snowball in hell) AND (b) a large majority of the returnees were granted equal rights in Israel (doubtful) AND (c) a large majority of them then voted to end the status of Israel as a "Jewish state" whatever the phrase might then ambiguously mean (more likely, but certainly not for sure), that THEN the Palestinian authority could not officially support such a vote. Big whoopee doo.
This still strikes as me as 90% sound-bite posturing. A tempest in a slightly larger than and more temperamental than a normal teapot, perhaps.
I remain convinced -so far at least- that what really MATTERS is what happens when Mitchell or whoever presents Whatayahoo and Apass with some tasty carrots and some really wicked sticks. Not rhetorical tea-leaf-reading on opening propaganda stances.
June 15, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
OH..OH..AH..AH..dennis ross is out
OH..OH..AH..AH..please don't pout
"Dennis Ross, who most recently served as a special State Department envoy to Iran, will abruptly be relieved of his duties, sources in Washington told Haaretz. An official announcement is expected in the coming days."
haaretz
June 15, 2009 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
God has matched us with His hour!
---Rupert Brooke
June 15, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, BradtheDad is willing to swallow any crap the Israelis say, while offering no such latitude to Palestinians.
June 15, 2009 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "a land they have inhabited from time immemorial"
MY COMMENT: You sly devil, you!
June 16, 2009 2:55 AM | Reply | Permalink