What Netanyahu talks about when he talks about a Palestinian state
Does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a vision for the Palestinian issue? Does he know what he wants?
I don’t believe people who say that he doesn’t.
For instance, in an oped today in Haaretz, David Landau writes:
The British elder statesman Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a proud Jew, pointedly told delegates at a conference in London last week that he has never been able to get Benjamin Netanyahu to answer one straightforward question: “What is your strategy? I understand your short-term tactics, but what is your long-term strategy?” That meant, said Sir Malcolm, that Netanyahu doesn’t have one or, worse, that he doesn’t want to share it because it does not provide for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
But one only has to look at Netanyahu’s speeches and actions to understand what Netanyahu talks about when he talks about a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian state that Netanyahu envisions is demilitarized, cannot form alliances, cannot threaten Israel’s security in any way, is not in charge of its airspace, brings Hamas in Gaza to heel, renounces terror, renounces the right of return, stops all incitement, recognises Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, agrees to an end of the conflict, will agree to Israeli or American monitors on its borders, will agree to a permanent Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, does not contain any large Israeli settlement blocs, does not contain any biblical Jewish sites, and does not have any part of Jerusalem as its capital.
If the Palestinians agree to all of that, then yes, they can have their state.
Should be a piece of cake.
Capice?
And that’s a problem because…
The thing is, that I the avowed Peacenik agree with most of what’s described as Bibi’s idea of a Pal state:
The Palestinian state that [I] envision is demilitarized, cannot form [military] alliances, cannot threaten Israel’s security in any way, is not [fully] in charge of its airspace, [politically] brings Hamas in Gaza to heel, renounces terror, [effectively] renounces the right of return, stops all incitement, recognizes Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people [in exchange for our recognition, in some form, of the Nakba and of Palestine as their nation state], agrees to an end of the conflict, will agree to Israeli or American monitors on its borders, will agree to a permanent [international and] Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley [see the previous point - this was/is also part of the plan for the Golan], does not contain any large Israeli settlement blocs [with 1:1 land-swaps]
The problem is the other two points: Jerusalem and Jewish biblical sites, the latter of which I’ve not seen any evidence of which and, frankly, the whole of the West Bank is one big Jewish biblical site.
Other than those other two, these demands have ben made by both Labor and Kadima governments in negotiations which went very far, up to the wire. But Jerusalem is a complete deal-breaker, and everyone knows it. I don’t think we’ve yet found the answer as to what Netanyahu really wants, but it seems to be a de fact Palestinian entity along the lines stated, though with settlers and checkpoints interspersed in the middle (no Palestinian leader can or will agree to their removal without Jerusalem, and unilateralism is dead).
Sounds reasonable to me…
[...] is that this suits Netanyahu just fine: the kind of Palestinian state he’s willing to agree to is the kind of Palestinian state the Palestinians will never agree to. And in any case, there is absolutely no appetite in Jerusalem to make any bold moves in the [...]