Hey, Bibi, yes or no?
Benjamin Netanyahu's evasion of the question of whether or not he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the main reasons his coalition government will not include Kadima, the centrist party Tzipi Livni heads, or any left-of-center party.
Netanyahu favors first creating the conditions necessary for peace, strengthening the Palestinian economy and Palestinian institutions. After that -- who knows? Bibi steadfastly has refused to say where, exactly, the process will lead.
So when Zalman Shoval, a foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, addressed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York on Thursday, I put the question to him simply and directly, and asked him for a simple and direct answer in return: Does Mr. Netanyahu favor the eventual creation of a Palestinian state?
Shoval's response: Um... we'll get back to you on that.
"We're not going to rule out anything at this stage, but we're certainly not going to determine anything at this stage," Shoval said. "We think it would be foolhardy today to agree to a set formula. There's no justification for a rush into a solution."
Except, perhaps, the prevention of more bloodshed on both sides.
Netanyahu has been careful to leave his options open. While he is on record against a Palestinian state -- he fought the idea when his predecessor at the helm of Likud, Ariel Sharon, backed the notion in 2002, and when Sharon announced his plan to unilaterally withdraw Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu resigned from the government in protest in 2005 (Bibi was finance minister at the time) -- Netanyahu has been more cautious in the last couple of years.
He and his representatives often try to deflect the issue, depending on the audience.
Shoval told me: "The Netanyahu government does not see itself as a government which would lord over the Palestinians."
Think that means yes to a Palestinian state? Thing again.
"I want to state our position very clearly," Shoval said Thursday. "The two-state solution has become a mantra."
"As far as we are concerned," he said, "it's a formula that has to be judged by its practicability, and not ideology for or against."
"Netanyahu's approach to the Palestinians is pragmatic."
But what is it, exactly? To help build Palestinian institutions, "not instead of political negotiations, but as a conduit or corridor for political negotiations," Shoval said.
And then what?
Shoval and Netanyahu's formulations leave the door open for any number of options, including transforming Jordan into the Palestinian state -- something many of Netanyahu's supporters favor -- or giving the Palestinians limited control over their own affairs and calling it a day. The latter option seems more and more along the lines of what Netanyahu is thinking.
That idea once was the prevailing approach in Jerusalem -- in 1985.
But it's 2009, and the Americans, Israel's last three prime ministers and the majority of the Israeli public support the idea of a Palestinian state; indeed, many argue that it's the only way to secure Israel's future as a Jewish democracy. This, to say nothing of the Palestinians themselves, who will accept nothing less than full statehood. Is Netanyahu trying to turn back the clock?
Shoval argued in his presentation that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, appear to agree with Netanyahu's approach of strengthening Palestinian institutions as a conduit for negotiations. He took pains to note that Mitchell did not bring up the two-state solution in his meetings with Netanyahu during his recent trip to the region.
Is Shoval trying to suggest that the Americans don't really favor a two-state solution?
As on many other topics -- such as Israeli-Syria negotiations -- the burden is on Netanyahu to make his positions clear. So long as he refrains from doing so, his detractors will assume the worst.
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Alan,
You couldnt be more wrong. You talk as if their is any parity whatsoever between the Palestinians and Israeis in their negotiating positions. Since 1967, the only party who can create a two-state solution is the Israelis. If the Palestinians could have, they would have. The choice for Israel, more so than ever before, is whether to be a Jewish state or a Democratic state, pure and simple. Even if they make peace in a way that Egypt and Jordan take over areas where Palestinians reside, it still means relinquishing land. And if Israel, has no intention of relinquishing any control of land where Palestinians reside (the Israeli position since Oslo) they must make them Israeli citizens. Perhaps a better title for this article would have been “Hey Israel: Yes or No?”
I don’t get it. Wouldn’t the first thing the JTA could do is publish the Draft Constitution of the State of Palestine. I googled it. I can’t figure out how lawyer Clinton could even attempt to negotiate peace between Israel and a State of Palestine. It’s as if there had been no Muslim invasion as soon as Israel was acknowledged by the U.N. Yes, I know Israel doesn’t have a Constitution but it’s because of the fight between treating the Torah Scrolls as secular books or Holy Books. If you read the Palestinian Constitution, they say Jerusalem is their capital. They don’t even know about Cyrus and Darius participating in Jewish Jerusalem. If they read the Bible they’d know more about their own history.
In addition, I just don’t get the average US parent. It’s okay for US citizens to discuss the Quran and the Bible (my preference, NSRV which includes the devine Maccabees IV. Makes me feel especially proud to be a Jew. ) It’s okay for all Muslim countries not to study thed Bible. So irrational. Makes our military bipolar I think. Just thinking of this injustice, makes me feel victimized by the Quranic countries.
I had an Orthodox Hebrew education and I think all US should replace the first five books of the NSRV with the cdrom The Trope Trainer;) The reason I use the NSRV is because it preserves my entire Jewish history. It’s all about Middle Eastern Jews I believe except for Luke.
Bibi’s position is pragmatic and the Israeli swing to the “right” confirms that most Israelis do not see a Palestinian state as anything more than a mantra. For too long Israeli leaders have been paying lip service to the various meddlers who want to push israel into a suicide pact to advance their own national interests. Put simply, for the Arabs, maintaining a state of war is more important than establishing a state. Even the faction - the PA - internationally designated as “moderate” supports terror and refuses to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The Arabs of Gaza, Judea and Samaria can either join the 21st century or Israel needs to continue its tutelage of the fanatical savages who reside in those terrotories. Any talk of Israel having to choose between democracy and demographic annihilation is talking nonsense! Australia was (and remains) a democracy when it controlled New Guinea; it gave that territory independence when the people there developed to the point of being able togovern themselves. The Arabs and meddlers need to be told that until the Arabs abandon the war path, Israel will exercise the responsibilities of a colonial power to stop a future Palestine from becoming not only a failed state - as most colonies became - but a terror launching region for Islamofascists.
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Alan Stein
03/13/09 01:42 PM
It’s not up to Israel to decide what form of government the Palestinian Arabs ultimately have in whatever territory they eventually get in a settlement - under the assumption they ever decide they want a settlement. Whether they establish a state in that territory, establish two separate states (one in Gaza, one in Judea and Samaria), or do what’s clearly more sensible than either - ask Egypt to annex Gaza and ask Jordan to annex their portions of Judea and Samaria - is their decision, not Israel’s.