Saturday 6 June 2009

"Netanyahu will avoid this confrontation and will give up his years of opposition to a Palestinian state ...hoping for Arab 'refusal'.."


Aluf Benn in Haaretz, here

"...The overt dispute with Israel is meant to bolster his image in Arab eyes. If Netanyahu would have agreed immediately to his demand, Obama would have lost points. He wants to come to Cairo after being seen as having hit Israel's right-wing prime minister on the head.

The American determination caught Netanyahu and his aides by surprise, and they were neither party to the drafts of the president's speech nor were they able to influence its content. The PM's Bureau is finding it difficult to function and is barely able to respond to telephone calls, much less put together a counter-spin. Netanyahu sent the "dovish" ministers, Dan Meridor and Ehud Barak, to the U.S. in an effort to explain it was not possible to freeze it all because that is not realistic. The Americans have not budged.
The relatively good news for Netanyahu this week came in an interview Obama gave to the BBC, in which he discussed a return to the road map and made demands of the Palestinians and the Arab states. Obama said patience is needed, and essentially granted Netanyahu a chance for another meeting, at which the prime minister will have to accept an American diktat.

It will not be simple. From Israel's point of view freezing the settlements is not merely a slogan but raises real complexities, even before the protests begin and the settlers and rightist parties begin their resistance. The government is finding it difficult to evacuate outposts, so how will it enforce a freeze on construction?

Netanyahu will do everything to avoid this confrontation and will therefore have to give up his many years of opposition to the idea of a Palestinian state. He will then hope that Arab refusals will bog the entire process down and will save him the trouble of having to discuss really difficult issues like evacuating settlements, Jerusalem and the refugees."

Posted by G, Z, & or B at 6:36 AM

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