Netanyahu (L) with Obama
Photo: AFP
In praise of weakness
Israel would have gained had Bibi said he’s too weak to promote two-state notion
On April 23 of this year, Netanyahu informed the Czech prime minister (and EU president at the time) that there will be no settlement freeze. If Israelis are not allowed to build homes, Palestinians should also face a similar ban, he said. So what happened since then? What does Netanyahu see now that he didn’t see in April?
Minister Limor Livnat had an explanation: She said she does not envy the PM, as we’re facing a terrible US Administration. Netanyahu is in distress and the pressure exerted on him is immense. That is, the prime minister is forced to do it; he has not changed his views.
When the prime minister is forced to “talk peace,” he does not lie in the regular sense of the word. He is reading an American text drafted by Peres and Barak, and a good actor gets into his role. Netanyahu, who has the right natural traits for this, truly grew into his role.
What is left now is to ask what it does to our sovereignty and democracy when a PM is shown to be a marionette. What will our youths say when they see their leader reject the ideal of the homeland’s integrity, which he preached for all his life, while adopting a contradictory notion (“the two-state solution”), and now they hear that this is not the PM’s view, but rather, words that are dictated by a foreign power?
And what will these youths do when they get an order to raze, with their own hands and while wearing a uniform, the Jewish settlement enterprise in line with the abovementioned dictates?
And why doesn’t anyone raise a hue and cry over the fact that the will of the people in the elections is being trampled over time and again every time the people choose a rightist path? Decent people refuse to take part in a game whose result is known in advance. Why do the shapers of public opinion around here welcome the fact we’re turning into a satellite state, whose parliament and public opinion are no more than a theater and whose leader is an actor?
Abbas’ art form
The leader of a small state who makes pretenses of being “strong” will prompt the superpower to demand that he return to his country and show his strength by enforcing the superpower’s will on his people. For that reason, the sly Arafat pretended to be weak and miserable; a person who must not be allowed to fall. His successor, Abbas, has upgraded this method into an art form.
How many gestures have we made, and how many more will be forced upon us in order to “boost Abbas?” Ehud Barak too is being reinforced by his weakness; the more his party crumbles, the more he is allowed to get away with “in order to boost him.”
Had Netanyahu told Obama that he is not strong enough to reject his values and pledges and survive politically, just like Obama cannot adopt the Republican Party’s platform and stay in power, the State of Israel would have gained. It would not be easy for Obama to appear as the person who toppled a friendly elected government.
The “moderate” Arabs are always threatening, with great success, that should they be toppled, the alternative would be worse. Netanyahu too could have hinted that should he be forced to resign as result of the American pressure, the popular reaction in the new elections may bring a more rightist government to power.
Had he done so, we would not have seen the odd phenomenon whereby the man who appeases everyone – the Arabs, the Russians, the Iranians, and the terrorists –only abuses his most loyal ally.
