Netanyahu. Fighting to keep the balls in the air
Photo: Noam Moskowitz
The Palestine circus
Op-Ed: Bibi is keeping those balls in the air as we watch in anticipation of a fall, but does he understand the environment has changed?
At the circus, any circus, the audience is wide-mouthed in the face of a juggler keeping three, five, or seven balls up in the air. Part of the audience is impressed with the balls flying in the air and the way they’re caught using one hand. Other members of the audience impatiently expect to one or two balls drop to the floor. The entire audience screams “oooh” when the juggler misses and the balls hit the ground. The overwhelming majority of the people are happy to see the juggler’s downfall: There, he too is just a human being like all others.
At this time, Bibi Netanyahu is at the point where the balls are flying into the air, one by one. And what about the audience? It’s holding its breath. Will the balls be dropped? Will they stay in the air? In our case, the audience is made up of the US president and everything he represents, the European Union, the Palestinians, and of course us, the Israelis.
Distinct and Separate
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We, Israelis, are divided into two camps, by the way, just like that audience in the circus: One section is impressed by the balls moving up, and the other is waiting to see the balls hit the ground. Even the best jugglers cannot keep all the balls in the air for unlimited time.
The undersigned believes that whether he wants it or not, Bibi Netanyahu has already crossed the Rubicon. The moment he declares his endorsement for the two-state solution, there’s no going back. Just like sheep to the slaughter, he will now keep going in one direction only. Ariel Sharon liked this analogy in respect to Israeli government policy; when the moment of truth arrived, he turned his back to everyone who believed in him for decades. He simply got rid of his previous doctrine.
Bibi believes, and there’s firm basis to this belief, that he knows the Americans better than any other Israeli statesman. “I’ll handle them,” he says. Netanyahu is indeed well familiar with the conduct of Administration officials, yet he is not the only one to have done some learning over the years.
The Americans studied Netanyahu as well. They know that he sells each party in the conflict, including his own party members, what this party wants to hear. And so, regrettable, he gets more deeply entangled.
When he returned from his talks in the US, he boasted of a series of exceptional achievements, yet later it turned out that this wasn’t the case. In response to the words he utters here, the Americans “peel his words off” like onion layers, even if they do so without tears, for the time being. They chuckle behind his back when he keeps on telling his interlocutors: “I’ll surprise people.”
Meanwhile, and just for the time being, the Americans are showing restraint. However, Bibi, the US expert, fails to understand that the “environment” has wholly changed. If he thinks that he will keep on fooling the Americans in the wake of the Obama failure and Republican rise in the recent midterm elections, he (and us) can expect a surprise.
Obama and his colleagues are waiting for Netanyahu around the corner, and as the Americans tend to do, they will leave him hanging out to dry. We are not a banana republic? Right. We are not America’s vassals? True. We’re an independent, free and sovereign country? Correct. That’s what the US president or one of his representatives would be saying as way of introduction, before the US goes ahead and roars. And when American roars, we all get scared.
I recall Eyal Halfon’s beautiful film, Circus Palestine. I know that every juggler returned to the darkness backstage with too many balls dropping to the floor. And there’s no sight that is sadder and more difficult to watch than a juggler who misses his balls, and his opportunity.
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