Israel Matzav

Netanyahu's blunder

Was Prime Minister Netanyahu wrong to ease up on the Gaza blockade? Benjamin Kerstein argues that the mistake wasn't the easing up but easing up after the flotilla incident.

While there is no doubt that he was under immense pressure to ease the blockade, particularly from President Barack Obama, and may have concluded that the blockade is a justifiable sacrifice for the cause of enlisting American support against Iran, none of this mitigates Netanyahu’s responsibility for placing Israel in this ludicrous position. In the first days after the flotilla incident, he played his usual defiant role, laying responsibility for the flotilla violence squarely on the thugs aboard and projecting the image of a resolute statesman unwilling to bow to unjust demands. It took him slightly less than a month to fold, and it is a spectacular fold indeed. He has vindicated Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s brinksmanship in supporting the flotilla, proven to Obama once and for all that Israel can indeed be pushed around, undermined and humiliated Israel’s defenders around the world, and handed the flotilla activists precisely the victory they wanted. They never got close to Israeli territorial waters, but they succeeded in breaking the blockade nonetheless, and it was Netanyahu, of all people, who led them through.

At the same time, it is almost impossible to imagine what the prime minister hopes to gain from his concession. It almost unthinkable that the Obama administration will actively aid him against Iran in the way he hopes. So long as the AKP remains in power, no amount of concessions will appease the Turkish desire to realign itself with Islamic theocracy. The international community has not the slightest intention of treating Israel with anything resembling fairness or sympathy, and as the EU announcement shows, they are more than prepared to pressure Israel for further concessions, each more dangerous than the last. In fact, the only way Netanyahu’s actions make sense is if they are the result of shallow and simplistic wishful thinking, a far cry indeed from Netanyahu’s carefully cultivated media persona as a hardened realist.

It must be said that all of this renders a serious judgment on the prime minister; because this is not, unfortunately, the first time this sort of thing has occurred. Throughout his career, Netanyahu has attempted to reap the rewards of defiant, tough-minded rhetoric, portraying himself as the one Israeli politician willing to stand up to threats from Israel’s enemies and misguided demands from its friends. But every time this alleged toughness has been put to the test, he has failed spectacularly. From the Hebron Accords and the Wye negotiations during his first term in the late 1990s to the settlement freeze and now the blockade in his second, Netanyahu has said much about his courage and convictions and, in the end, done nothing whatsoever to indicate that he possesses either. Each time serious political pressure has been brought to bear, he has folded, usually in highly ignominious fashion. And each time, Israel has been damaged politically while gaining nothing in return.

This time, I fear, is no different. Had Netanyahu simply conceded the blockade from the beginning, the same result would have ensued, and Israel would have been spared the unjust but inevitable criticism that resulted. Instead, the prime minister made a show of sticking to his guns, failing to understand that if you choose to do so in the face of pressure and controversy, you must do so to the end, and while this may not garner you accolades from others, it will at least gain you their respect. Netanyahu has now lost both, and Israel is the poorer for it.

He has a point. I'd rather see Netanyahu stick to his guns. On the 'blockade.' On the 'settlement freeze.' On Jerusalem. Instead, Netanyahu makes a show of doing the right thing and then caves.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:22 AM