Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Michael Oren tries to explain the significance of Netanyahu's settlement freeze into perspective for the casual observer in the Wall Street Journal: Israel's Settlement Freeze - Prime Minister Netanyahu has broken with his party to restart the peace process.
...Twice--in 1948 and 1967--the West Bank served as the staging ground for large-scale attacks against Israel. While defending itself, Israel captured the territory and reunited with its ancestral homeland: Haifa is not in the Bible, but Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jericho decidedly are. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis rushed to resettle their tribal land.
These communities widened Israel's borders, which at points are a mere eight miles wide. American policy makers recognized Israel's need for defensible borders and, in November 1967, they supported U.N. Resolution 242, which called for withdrawals from "territories" captured in the war, but not from "all the territories" or even "the territories."
All successive Israeli governments supported the settlements. Only with the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords did then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agree to restrain construction in outlying communities that he considered unnecessary for Israel's defense. But the settlements continued to expand. Meanwhile the peace process progressed. The Palestinians never made a construction freeze in Jerusalem and the settlements a precondition for talks -- until earlier this year.
Mr. Netanyahu initially responded that Jews, like all people, can build legally in Jerusalem, and that it's unreasonable to disallow settlers from building even an extra room for a newborn. Still, he promised not to establish new settlements, not to appropriate additional land for existing ones, nor even to induce Israelis to move to them. Yet the Palestinians balked. The peace process was moribund, awaiting an intrepid stroke.
Mr. Netanyahu has now taken that initiative. By suspending new Israeli construction in all of the West Bank, the prime minister has done what none of his predecessors, including Rabin, ever suggested...
Why temporary? Because history isn't going to stand still forever waiting for the Palestinians to go from welfare community to real government.
Note the bolded part above (my emphasis). The Administration listened to the Rashid Khalidi's and the other campus intellects and emphasized Israeli action to resolve the issue, but that never was the cause. The game is not about building a Palestinian State, it's about dismantling the Jewish one, and whatever happens after that...Allah will take care of. So when the Obama Administration started pressuring the Israelis for unilateral measures, it did nothing but cement Palestinian Arab (and the Arab World generally) intransigence and reinforce their view that all they needed to do was hang tight. As Abbas himself said (to paraphrase), life is good.
Sadat came to the table because he knew history wouldn't wait. He knew the Israelis would build and move forward and he had to come to the table and make peace. Israel rewarded him, the Arabs killed him,
Let's try it this way:
Bibi has not suddenly forgotten the home truths about the Palis that he's expressed in his books and speeches for decades.
And surely the poll-conscious Bibi knows that Barak's leftward leanings have caused Labor to wither (latest polls give them just 6 seats!).
So:
This freeze is another example of Bibi's deft handling of this White House.
Bibi and Liberman are working very hard, away from the limelight, to bury the 2-state Oslo formula.
But The White House lefties want to follow the Alinsky formula of "isolating, personalizing, and demonizing" the opponent. But the only figure recognizable enough for that is Bibi himself.
So Bibi keeps feinting left - and nameless pols in the Likud (and now the larger populace) play the Bad Cops in this rope-a-dope routine. Remember Hilary backing down, saying that a freeze was not a precondition? Here's round two.
The freeze has galvanized many middle-of-the-road Likudniks. The protests were sparked this time by secular, non-religious mayors and Regional Council members - not the usual religious settler activists.
We are being told that Bibi is "shocked" by the vehemence of Israeli opposition to the freeze.
I think his purpose is to show the world just how many Israelis are "post Oslo" - and put an end to talk of 2 states west of the Jordan.
And inducing the Israeli public to actually concretize its post-Gaza change of heart squeezes Labor and crushes Kadima - which can only be icing on the cake.
Expect Bibi's gloves to come off in dealing with the Palis after decisive action on Iran and/or the midterm elections.