Here is great reporting at Haaretz on the Israeli Prime Minister calling Germany after the Security Council vote last week condemning settlements and expressing his dismay at Germany’s assent. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wasn’t buying. When will such a bald description of Israel’s western-rogue status find its way into American papers? (an understanding, by the way, that Seham expressed here yesterday with slashing insight). Also, contrast Merkel’s stellar performance here with the passive high-faluting rhetoric of our president, hobbled by the lobby and the whole delegitimization narrative that prevents any real understanding.
Netanyahu told Merkel he was disappointed by Germany’s vote and by Merkel’s refusal to accept Israel’s requests before the vote, the source added. Merkel was furious.
“How dare you,” she said, according to the official. “You are the one who disappointed us. You haven’t made a single step to advance peace.”
The prime minister assured Merkel that he intended to launch a new peace plan that would be a continuation of his Bar-Ilan University speech, given in June 2009, in which he agreed to establishing a Palestinian state, the official revealed.
“I intend to make a new speech about the peace process in two to three weeks,” Netanyahu told Merkel.
The German chancellor and her advisers, who have been repeatedly disappointed by Netanyahu’s inaccurate statements and failure to keep promises, did not believe a word of what the prime minister told her, the source said.
…Haaretz’s check with a number of Israeli sources indicates that the prime minister and his advisers are desperately looking for a way to jumpstart the peace process, in view of Israel’s growing international isolation.
