Ira Glunts writes:
The belligerent tone and content of the speech serves to remind us how difficult it is going to be to push Netanyahu to make the concessions necessary for a just peace. The perceptive and knowledgable Helena Cobban implies that we should not be worried by the "opening negotiating position" that Netanyahu presented. Ms. Cobban is one of the best and most informed writers around, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Netanyahu's presentation of what indeed appears to be his opening negotiating position was inappropriate if he intends to pursue meaningful negotiations. Presenting such an extreme position at this time only angers the Palestinians and makes them more entrenched. This is what happened at Camp David.
Also, Netanyahu reportedly told Obama that the speech was meant to be a response to the US President's initiative. If this is the case it is hardly promising.
Some of the limitations on the Palestinian state, such as a demilitarization and restrictions on airspace, were agreed to by Arafat and Abbas in the past. But this does not mean that the Palestinians will continue to accept these limitations, though. Palestinians rightly object when the Israelis try to "pocket" these former concessions which they (the Palestinians) want to use as negotiating chips in the future.
However, the fact that in the Oslo negotiations the Palestinian state under consideration was never a normal state but a very limited one is hardly ever mentioned. (There are more limitations that the Israelis have always insisted on.) Maybe it is positive that this important issue is now beginning to be discussed.
And finally I wonder, can there be any fruitful negotiation without Hamas? Does Abbas alone have enough support and authority to implement any final status treaty which would result from negotiations? Bibi, Obama and Abbas all agree on excluding Hamas. I am not sure that will be possible.
The ball is in Obama's court now. I hope he is ready to spend the political capital required to push for a real peace.
Peace wasn't made any closer by a speech in Cairo or the speech in Jerusalem. The big obstacles are future wars: A Palestinian attack on Israel from the new state and Iranian nukes.
Neither speech changes any of that. Possibly the crowds in Iran are changing the nuclear situation, though. If so, Iranian support for Hamas and Hezbollah might wane, and both problems be reduced.
But neither problem will effected by reducing Israeli settlement growth. Reducing the settlements may, however, be part of a real peace.
Netanyahu's idea of a demilitarized Palestine, though, reminds me of the Treaty of Versailles. It didn't work very well.
I think the position is his ending position, not his beginning. He's stretched the limits of his base, which was thin to being with. The only hope is for Arab states to up their offer of peace, including perhaps an offer of Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to meet with Peres (more likely than Netanyahu), including presenting features of guarantees to enhance Israeli security at the green line, but without stating "Jewish state", but definitely stating "Israel". The ball then goes to the Israeli court, after Arab compromises on framing, but not signficantly on content.
I agree. I think it clear, assuming the translation accurately captured subtleties in Hebrew political diction that may change interpretation, that he was offering his 'ending' positions, the positions that he will never compromise and that will not be on the table at the beginning of negotiations. However, their placement in his plan for sham stalling negotiations is irrelevant. They make it impossible for the United States to achieve even a minimal level of its critical security objectives, and that is not acceptable. P.M. Netanyahu drew his line in the sand. I think that he gravely underestimates the will of those currently in power to protect America, and that he won't be P.M. for very much longer.
I also agree. I am not sure he gravely underestimates the Obama regime; a telling sign will be precisely what peace negotiations Dennis Ross is being reassigned to handle. It may be Obama et al are just avoiding a clear charade by demoting Ross, but putting him, the tried and true fake negotiator for Israel, into the actual details, that is, the framing of the negotiations towards a new rump state while Ross's replacement (or Hillary herself) will continue the charade plan, focused on the end of the year as the time to start beating the war drums for a stubborn Iran.
OT: Is it just me or is Jeffrey Goldberg seriously on the verge of losing it.?
Ian Kelly live on CSPAN: "Obama, Clitnton oppose continued settlements; Israel has an obligation under the Road Map to freeze settlements. We are focused on peace between two peoples living in their historical homelands. We are the facilitator. We take it as a positive N accepted the two state solution (his response to, did N blow off the settlement issue?)" Seems from what Kelly said Obama knows N is making a statement that means nothing much, as a prelude to sitting down at the table. Obama probably feels he at least got N to concede the goal, the two state solution. That's a start. Unfortunately, none of the reporters questioning Kelly centered on the nature of the Pal entity N described, that is, a rump state without real sovereignty.
I agree too. I think Netanyahu still thinks the lobby has the power to stop Obama in his tracks, therefore, ending position is good enough.
Seems to me that the speech just confirms the idea that it is senseless for the Palestinians to sit down with Netanyahu at all, and therefor a sham for the U.S. to be urging them to do otherwise. If you look at the speech overall—even from the standpoint of long-standing U.S. standards—Netanyahu made a big show of giving an ounce while taking back a truckload of things Israel had previously conceeded . Yes, something like a Palestinian "state" was mentioned, albeit more of a pet than a state. But then what else happened? For the first time ever I think it was explicitly stated that there was not going to be any halt to at least some growth of some settlements. And the for the first time ever I think it was explicitly stated that there's no need to negotiate over the final status of Jerusalem, nor of the Right of Return. I.e., issues that the U.S. has always said ought to be subjects for negotiation. (And, clearly, as regards the status of Jerusalem, one which the U.S. I think has always felt that Israel had to give big on.) Plus then there's the essentially new and spectacular demand for recognition "as a jewish state" which even moderate Hosni Mubarek instantaneously said would never be granted by *any* arab country. So Netanyahu shuffled half a step forward, and then essentially took two if not three long strides back. I for one can imagine him buckling to some significant degree on settlement expansion, saying it will only continue in four or five of the biggest ones. And I can imagine some buckling on the Right of Return in the form of paying (with U.S. dollars no doubt) compensation to some arabs. (While never letting any return.) But how does he buckle on Jerusalem's status now? And what about that "jewish state" recognition? I know it seems extreme and that thus he or his successors will be forced off of same. (Otherwise what's the response to the argument of the rest of the world that maybe they should declare themselves "Christian" or "Islamic" nations and then proceed to expel their jewish citizens?) But the Israeli public seems to have adopted it big-time because they see it as the answer to the demographic problem they face regardless of any peace deal. (E.g., allowing themselves, one way or another, to take measures to maintain jewish control over Israel forever.) Thus the last seems to me a non-negotiable position for Israel right now and for the forseeable future. But Obama got his little concession, and so long as the PA proves as corrupt as it has in the past and thus agrees to meet to "negotiate" with Israel he got all the sham he needs to announce the launching of a hopeful new peace process that is in reality hopeless.
Here's an interview with Rabin on Oslo http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/1095/9510029.htm . He's talking about "something less than a state".
Uh, Sin Nombre, not sure if you've noticed, but there are official Christian nations and a whole lot of official Muslim nations. Some of them have the death penalty for being a Christian missionary or converting from Islam to any other religion. There are cities (see Mecca, or rather don't see it if you aren't a Muslim) where no non-Muslim is allowed to even visit. Funny how it is the explicitly Muslim countries that seem to have a problem with Israel being a Jewish state. That's because their problem is not that Israel is a religious state, it is that Israel is not a Muslim state. As for paying off the Palestinians instead of giving them the right of return. I am sure the Jewish Israelis would be happy to sign over all the money and property they and their parents and grandparents left behind in Muslim countries when they got kicked out or forced out by oppression and went to Israel over the last 60 years. Of course, collecting from the Muslim contries will be the Palestinians' problem.
It's just you.
Excellent point. By Palestinian standards the descendants of refugees from Arab countries are also refugees.
Abbas has no authority whatever. His presidency expired a long time ago.
I have noticed there are any number of countries that explicitly call themselves "Islamic" or "Christian" or otherwise, and so the first question is simply whether Diaspora jewish folks want more of it, no matter how innocent it appears. Especially in the West, which Israel constantly tells us it is a part of. So, again, when the worm turns in the West and you've got someone taking power in Europe or the U.S. who starts talking about declaring their country "Christian," where's their argument when they support Israel or even stand silent when it essentially does the same thing? After all, if Israel can do it with over 20% of its population being non-jewish, gee, the non-Christian population of most Western countries is only in the single digits if I'm not mistaken. Secondly and even more to the point I also suspect that most people understand that Bibi and Israel aren't making this recognition thing a big deal just for the fun of it or out of historical reasons like so many explicit "Christian" nations, but instead intends it to justify some (further) treatment of non-jews differently than it treats jews. Perhaps the Lieberman option of telling them to "take their bundles and go." I thus stand by my point that the rest of the world does indeed see that recognition demand as extreme (which even the U.S. has done under Obama when it recently told the PA that it did not approve of that demand by Israel). But even despite that, as I said, I think that Netanyahu and Israel have now laid that condition out there as an absolute that he and it simply are not going to be able to backtrack on for a long long time. (As Bibi no doubt intended.) As for paying off the Palestinians in exchange for the Right of Return, I have no problem with it so long as the Palestinians agree, and indeed I said nothing differently. (Although I will say I long for the day when Israelis finally get some pride and started paying their own bills instead of always sucking around the U.S. to pay its way.) And your snarkiness on the point just kind of reveals the ugly partisan Israeli mindset that even if Israel ever does agree to compensate the Palestinians in exchange for the Right of Return (even though it'll be with U.S. dollars), it is never going to do so out of any genuine human acknowledgement of the pain and suffering and wrongs done to the Palestinians during the Nakba. Instead, and in keeping with the monumental ingratitude it habitually shows even to the U.S. which has done so much for it, it will be with its signature petty smallness. And as for all the monies and property lost by jews in the ME who left for Israel, perhaps you haven't quite read up on the efforts of the uber-Zionists to scare those folks into leaving, or otherwise taking actions that clearly indicated they didn't mind inciting anti-semitism so driving those jews to Israel such as the Lavon affair. Not that this kind of thing was totally responsible, but it wasn't insignificant, no matter how unbelievable. Nuts, the history books are fully of Zionists at the time who were even perfectly content to let European jews suffer and be killed in favor of only those who wanted to go to Israel. Do some reading about the great historic Zionist figures; Thomas Jeffersons and James Madisons they were not. Nor even—for many—your average decent human being even. Not exactly people to be proud of.
Were did you do your reading? Mein Kampf?