Bibi's Bait-and-Switch

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-14/bibis-bait-and-switch/full/


Bibi's Bait-and-Switch

by Eric Alterman

With today's speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have had his Nixon-in-China moment. Instead, says Eric Alterman, he chose to ignore Obama's message from Cairo—and seal his political fate despite his conditional acceptance of a two-state solution.



Expectations could hardly have been higher for Bibi Netanyahu’s speech Sunday afternoon at Bar-Ilan University. Today was Netanyahu’s opportunity—his last opportunity—to be Israel’s de Gaulle in Algeria, its Nixon in China, or to take a more recent example, its de Klerk in Cape Town. Barack Obama traveled to Cairo University to ask both Arabs and Jews to re-imagine themselves, their enemies, and the possibilities of peace.

Leading up to the speech, Netanyahu not only met with U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell, but also with Israel’s most respected and admired author, David Grossman, who lost his son on the final day of the failed invasion of Lebanon, together with the writer Eyal Meged. The authors pleaded with him to embrace the fateful moment and "take the path of giants." Over the weekend, he also met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President Shimon Peres. All reportedly urged him to embrace Obama’s plan to end settlement expansion and begin negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu had no choice but to at least feint in this direction. Anything less would be considered a direct slap in the face of Barack Obama, coming in the wake of his extremely well-received Cairo speech, and sour U.S.-Israeli relations at a moment when Netanyahu is seriously seeking U.S. support for a potential military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, (however costly, politically, and minimal its possibility of achieving its aims).

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Netanyahu no doubt believes he bought himself some time with his rhetorical shift on the two-state solution. And his short-term position was undoubtedly strengthened by the unhappy turn of events in Iran this weekend. As the Israeli journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff pointed out in Haaretz that "from Israel's point of view, the victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is actually preferable. Not only because "better the devil you know," but because the victory of the pro-reform candidate will paste an attractive mask on the face of Iranian nuclear ambitions.”

But however worrisome the Iranian threat to Israel may be, the nation’s fundamental quandary remains inescapable. As difficult as it may appear to be to make peace with a corrupt and potentially powerless Palestinian Authority and a hostile Hamas, Israel’s other choices are actually worse: Either expel millions of Palestinians from their lands to preserve the state’s Jewish character or give up on democratic rule entirely, embracing a nightmare future much like that in South Africa under apartheid. Barack Obama offered Bibi Netanyahu an escape hatch, perhaps the last one Israel is likely to see while the conflict remains potentially solvable. Absent the pomp and circumstance, Netanyahu’s response could hardly have been clearer: “Thanks, but no thanks.”