I just kind of half-watched Netanyahu’s speech while I was grilling some chicken. I noted that he did recognize the need for a two-state solution. That wasn’t really much of a concession, but it’s the first time that Bibi has made it. Other than that, he offered absolutely nothing. He called for a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He promised not to build new settlements but rejected Obama’s demand that there be a total freeze with no natural growth of settlements. He called for Fatah to forcibly reduce Hamas’s military capability (I’m not sure in the exact language he used). He demanded repeatedly that the Palestinians recognize unequivocally Israel’s right to be a Jewish state.
Netanyahu is in a difficult political position and I did not expect him to be making many concessions. I am not going to get upset about mere rhetoric and positional posturing. So, aside from the fact that Netanyahu made zero progress in changing the tone of the dispute, my only major criticism is that he rebuffed Obama on the natural growth question. The obvious response is to insist that natural growth be checked and make it clear to the Israeli electorate than Bibi is being forced into a decision he opposes.
We shall see.
Will the IDF be busing Fatah fighters from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip to conduct the Palestinian civil war that Netanyahu is asking for? To say nothing of the fact that if Fatah was capable of putting Hamas down, they’d have done it already.
The Israeli strategy of making fairy-tale demands must surely be wearing thin even with a big chunk of the American audience.
And then there’s the other classic Israeli strategy: offering to sin no more in exchange for not having to make up for past sins or, more accurately, to hold sinning to historic levels. No new settlements? How about a timetable for evacuating the existing settlements and withdrawing to your legal pre-1967 boundaries?
Can we stop funding these pirates soon?
“Will the IDF be busing Fatah fighters from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip to conduct the Palestinian civil war that Netanyahu is asking for?“
That’s not so very far fetched. In Jordan the Americans are as we speak busily training Fatah forces whose mission will be to quell opposition to Fatah, and to squash resistance against Israel, including, if past and recent performance is any indication, non-violent resistance efforts. Of course, I don’t know how this Fatah force is going to handle all the joint Palestinian-Israeli resistance. If they were to even look like they were going to hurt an Israeli it could turn very difficult. After all, a big part of the PA’s expected responsibility is, as it always has been, to guarantee security for the occupiers and their colonizers.
“No degree of suffering gives you an eternal passport to ride roughshod over another people.”
Tell that to most nice, liberal Zionists and you will get an earful (one reason I stopped trying to work with nice, liberal Zionists a long time ago – they need to make up their minds one way or the other and stick to it). Tell it to most other Zionists and you will be lucky if an earful is all you get.
Up until fairly recently, for the most part Israeli Jews who participated in civil disobedience in the OPT got special treatment. They might be arrested for a short period, but they did not get beaten, shot, put into indefinite detention, tortured, or otherwise abused as their Palestinian colleagues often did. That seems to have changed in recent years, and now, while they still are not treated as badly as Palestinians are, the military and border police are getting significantly rougher. At least that is what I have been hearing. Since these new Fatah forces are going to be expected to act against demonstrations and other non-violent resistance actions it will be interesting to see how they manage all the joint Jewish/Palestinian actions that take place on a regular basis because if they so much as look at an Israeli Jew in the wrong way, even if it is a protester, it will not be good for them, I am sure.
Associated Press story in the speech.
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(The Independent) Feb. 6, 2009 – Israel is about to make a misjudgement as disastrous – and deadly – as the attack on Gaza. In a few days, it looks as if it could elect Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister once again.
This is a man calling for the violent re-occupation of Gaza to “liquidate” its elected government. This is a man who says he will “naturally grow” the West Bank settlements. This is a man who says he will “never” negotiate over Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights, or control of the West Bank water supply.
This is a man who says establishing a Palestinian state would leave Israel with, “an existential threat and a public relations nightmare reminiscent of 1938 Czechoslovakia”. This is a man who Yitzhak Rabin’s widow said helped create a climate of hate that led to his murder.
The political beneficiaries of Operation Cast Lead have been Israel’s hard-right. The opinion poll numbers have surged for Netanyahu’s Likud and for the even more extreme Avigdor Lieberman. They say the only problem with the 23-day bombing of Gaza – killing 410 children, and hugely strengthening support for Hamas – is that it did not go far enough.
Only option open for Obama is regime change!
≈ Cross-posted from my diary — Netanyahu Says No to Obama and the U.S. ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."$30 Bn annual war chest to buy U.S. weaponry going bye-bye might catch attention : not that if it can be afforded with the $ digging deeper and oil escalating.
The transnationals have thoroughly destroyed U.S. government infrastructure : momentum is all that accounts for current levels of service.
I’m not sure where I quipped about el Salvador aside from my blog…an economic precursor to California-style budget meltdowns.
Think troops will be pulled back ‘in country’ before there’s no oil to fuel transport ?