Israel Matzav

Spineless Netanyahu being taken to the cleaners

Evelyn Gordon reports that our Prime Minister is being taken to the cleaners, making concession after unreciprocated concession just to try to get Abu Bluff back to the table.

Haaretz reported today that at a Quartet meeting last Wednesday, the European Union and Russia proposed demanding that Israel allow Orient House (the PA’s de facto foreign ministry) and other PA government offices to reopen in East Jerusalem. That is effectively a demand that Israel concede Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem even before the talks begin: while embassies are located in foreign countries, government offices are usually located in one’s own.

U.S. envoy George Mitchell, in his PBS interview earlier this month, declared that Washington was also seeking additional Israeli concessions to lure Abbas to the table. “What we have suggested to the Israelis is a series of steps and actions that they could take that would encourage President Abbas to enter the discussions,” he said, though declining to specify.

But nobody worries about enticing Israel to the table, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past nine months endlessly proclaiming his eagerness to resume talks. Hence Washington felt no need to press Arab states to reciprocate for the settlement freeze, nor did the Quartet feel a need to reward Israel for this gesture.

The U.S. did try to secure a Quartet statement praising the freeze in November, but Russia reportedly refused. Why? Washington’s draft included a call for renewed talks aimed at reconciling both sides’ goals, and described Israel’s goal as a “Jewish state” in borders that, inter alia, “reflect the developments” that have occurred since 1967. Russia said it opposed both defining Israel as a Jewish state and adapting the border to the settlement blocs, and therefore refused to acknowledge these as legitimate Israeli goals. Thus even as the EU and Russia publicly support Palestinian final-status demands on borders and Jerusalem, the Quartet has deemed Israel’s demands so illegitimate that they don’t even deserve mention as aspirations.

Prime Minister Netanyahu keeps pretending that we're going to negotiate without preconditions. In the meantime, he keeps getting his pocket picked. Why does he keep making concessions? Why isn't anyone in his cabinet stopping him? I can answer the last question anyway: The only one who knows what's actually going on is Ehud Barak, and Ehud Barak is a master at making substantive concessions in return for nothing. Ehud Barak is the father of unilateralism. (Five years before Ariel Sharon ordered all the Jews expelled from Gaza, Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to flee southern Lebanon under the cover of darkness).

Doesn't anyone in a position to do something see what this government is up to? What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:35 AM