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Benjamin Netanyahu's Excellent Adventure
07/07/14
Paul R. Pillar
Israel Palestinian Territories, Middle East
The
last few months have gone rather well for the right-wing Israeli
government of Benjamin Netanyahu, in the sense of advancing its prime
objective of indefinitely extending the occupation and colonization of
Palestinian territory by ensuring failure of any diplomatic efforts to
end the occupation. Netanyahu's success in this regard has been due both
to his own tactical skill and to the luck of outside events.
Netanyahu
achieved failure of the latest U.S. attempt to revive a peace process
worthy of that name partly through the preemptory demand for the
Palestinians to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” He also
successfully used the stratagem of striking a deal with the Palestinian
Authority that involved release of Palestinian prisoners, reneging on
that deal by construing its meaning differently than originally
intended, and then blaming the P.A. for not proceeding anyway with
substantive talks as if nothing untoward had happened. The Israelis had
to take some mild off-the-record blame for the breakdown from the
Americans, but nothing that wasn't manageable.
More
threatening to the Israeli government's strategy than John Kerry's
diplomatic efforts was the latest effort by Hamas and Fatah to bridge
their differences and jointly support a single Palestinian government.
These intra-Palestinian acts of reconciliation have always been a
problem for Netanyahu's strategy because they involve creating a
negotiating partner that can speak for the great majority of
Palestinians and because they belie the Israeli allegation that Hamas
wants nothing but the destruction of Israel. The Hamas-Fatah deal and
subsequent creation of a cabinet of technocrats clearly involved Hamas
moving toward Mahmoud Abbas's position rather than the other way around.
This latest reconciliation appeared even more threatening to
Netanyahu's approach than the previous ones because it showed more sign
of sticking. Perhaps most disturbing to Netanyahu is that the Obama
administration indicated it was willing to work with any jointly
supported Palestinian government that emerged from the deal.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/things-have-been-going-netanyahus-way-10822
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