by Rafael Ahren
Despite PM’s repeated calls for new negotiations, and support in principle for a two-state solution, recent statements underline his deep-rooted belief that, for ‘the foreseeable future,’ Palestine is a non-starter
Prime
Minister Netanyahu during a press conference on the security situation
on October 8, 2015, at his office in Jerusalem. (AFP photo/Gali Tibbon)
Former premier Yitzhak Rabin
never publicly declared support for Palestinian statehood. “The prime
minister is of the opinion that there is no room for a Palestinian
state,” Rabin’s top aide Eitan Haber wrote in a letter in December 1994. Ten months later, just weeks before he was assassinated, Rabin told the Knesset that he envisions for the Palestinians an “entity that is less than a state.”
Although
it is unclear what exactly Rabin had in mind — some argue he
intentionally avoided the words “Palestinian state” because he felt the
public wasn’t yet ready for an idea that was still taboo at the time —
right-wing politicians love to quote this particular sound bite.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned it during the 2010 state memorial ceremony of Rabin’s November 1995 assassination; Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon did the same at a commemorative event in Washington earlier this week.
Paradoxically, Rabin, though he never
announced it, was probably more inclined to the creation of a
Palestinian state and ending the military occupation of the West Bank
that started in 1967 than Netanyahu. The current prime minister
professes support for a two-solution and continually calls for peace
negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. But at the same time he
insists that under his reign there will be no large-scale withdrawal
from the West Bank — which means no final-status accord and no
Palestinian state.
Since the recent wave of terrorism erupted, and world leaders have increased their calls for a “credible process”
with the Palestinians, Netanyahu has made efforts to restore calm, but
also made plain on numerous occasions that he believes that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is currently not solvable.
At the height of the 2014 Gaza war, Netanyahu
revealed that he doesn’t envision Palestinian sovereignty in the West
Bank any time soon. “I think the Israeli people understand now what I
always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in
which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River
Jordan,” he said at a press conference in Jerusalem. In other words: no withdrawal and no Palestinian sovereignty, which means no state of Palestine.
A few months later, Netanyahu said, in a much quoted interview on the eve of the March 17 election, that, “indeed,” no Palestinian state would be created under his leadership.
An international outcry ensued, and, election
win secured, Netanyahu rolled back his statement, reiterating his
commitment, in principle, to the idea of a peaceful, sustainable “two
states for two people.” For Netanyahu, it’s a solution desirable in an
ideal world, but impossible to implement in the current chaotic climate
rocking the Middle East.
Finding himself confronted again with the
Palestinian question in light of the current relentless series of terror
attacks against Israelis, Netanyahu is again declaring support in
principle for a two-state solution. He also continues to call for the
resumption of peace talks. But he doesn’t even try to hide his firm
belief that any such endeavor would be ultimately futile.
Speaking at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee, Netanyahu said Monday that Israel, because of the
turmoil in the region, will have to remain in the West Bank for “the
foreseeable future.” He also reportedly said
that Israel “will forever live by the sword,” which some mean to take
that the Jewish state will have to be eternally vigilant, unable to
relent in its readiness to use force to defend itself.
“He didn’t say Israel will never be at peace,
he said Israel will always be at arms. But few countries in the world
are not at arms,” said MK Michael Oren, a member of the Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee (though he missed Netanyahu’s appearance there
because he was abroad.)
Then-ambassador
Michael Oren (left) welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu to Washington for
a 2010 state visit (Moshe Milner/GPO/Flash90 )
Netanyahu’s statement about living by the
sword is informed by a belief that Jewish people will always be
threatened “by anti-Semitism and other dark forces,” Oren said. “He
believes that these threats will be both tactical and strategic, if not
existential.” This worldview, which he inherited from his late father
Benzion, got “translated into very fast-held diplomatic positions” aimed
at ensuring that a Palestinian state doesn’t implode and become a
stronghold for terror, Oren concluded.
Netanyahu also often says that he opposes a
binational state. And he was “super serious” about previous rounds of
peace talks, according to Oren, who served as Israeli ambassador to the
US while such negotiations were ongoing.
An important element of his somber weltanschauung,
or world view, is the conviction that peace has been elusive due to the
Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state. The demand that follows —
that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the
Jewish people — overrides all other concerns. No demographic threat, no
international pressure, no boycott movement and no UN Security Council
resolution, Netanyahu has made clear over the years, will get him to let
go of what he deems a key precondition of any peace agreement.
At his speech earlier this month to the
Zionist Congress, which made headlines due to his assertion of the
mufti’s influence on Hitler, Netanyahu once again laid out what he sees
as the main reason for the stalemate. The Palestinians “don’t want a
state to end the conflict because they want a state to continue the
conflict and eradicate the Jewish state,” he declared. “This is what this conflict has always been about.”
The Palestinians not only refuse to recognize
Israel as a Jewish nation-state, they are “unwilling to end once and for
all the conflict,” he elaborated in the Knesset Monday. They are not
prepared to abandon their dream of a “return” to Acre, Haifa, Jaffa and
other cities within Israel, he added. “They are not willing to give up
the dream of a Palestinian state — not alongside Israel, but in its
place. They still teach their children to hate Jews, to see Israel as a
colonialist, imperialist entity — the source of all evil.”
The creation of a Palestinian state, he
argued, is thus nothing but another ploy to destroy Israel. Add to this
Netanyahu’s security considerations, which rule out an Israeli
withdrawal from the West Bank as long as the Middle East remains a
dangerous neighborhood, and you reach the conclusion that this prime
minister will never sign off on an agreement establishing a Palestinian
state.
Rafael Ahren
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-netanyahu-wont-approve-a-palestinian-state/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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