Israel Matzav

Was Succoth just an excuse?

Laura Rozen isn't buying the story that Prime Minister Netanyahu did not come to the United Nations this year because of Succoth.

But having come back from a few days of UN-related events in New York -- some of which prominently featured other major Middle East peace players, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad -- Israel's decision to not send Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to New York this week, and to downplay the presence of senior officials it sent in his stead, was notable. And it does not seem to be fully explained by the Sukkot holiday.

And even the exceptions only seemed to reinforce the sense that Israel was deliberately ducking a major profile in New York this week. Israeli President Shimon Peres appeared on a panel with Fayyad hosted by former U.S. President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Tuesday. (Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in the audience, but ducked in and out of Washington over the weekend with no public appearances.) And Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon attended a Palestinian donors conference with Fayyad. (Although the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, which hosted the meeting, has flat out denied Ayalon's account of Fayyad walking out of the meeting, and accused Ayalon of "distorting the facts.")

But compared with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bracing speech to the UN General Assembly last year, and the national leader representation many other countries sent, one gets the sense that Israel chose to keep a relatively low profile in New York this year, one not fully explained by Sukkot, and perhaps having more to do with reported Israeli plans not to extend a partial West Bank settlement moratorium due to expire next week.

...

"I think ... a purposeful decision was made that sending the principal - Netanyahu- to an unfriendly forum, the UN, during the last days of the settlement freeze was nothing but trouble," a prominent Washington Middle East hand told me. "If Bibi had good news to deliver on the freeze, he would have been here."

"There are plenty of wonderful places to celebrate Sukkot in New York," he added.

Yes, but not with your wife and kids at your own expense, and being in New York doesn't mean you're going to spend the major holiday day at the UN.

Okay, so maybe there was a connection. But no one here is going to talk about it.

And by the way, I'd believe Ayalon over the Norwegian Foreign Minister any day of the week.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:10 PM