Israel Matzav

They need him more than he needs them

Former 'peace processor' Aaron David Miller believes that the source of the new controversy about Jerusalem is that Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that President Obama needs him more than he needs President Obama. And Netanyahu is correct.

The latest to-do, Aaron David Miller told me this morning, “reflects a much-diminished administration that got off on the wrong foot from the beginning.” Prior history as well as the prospects of continued Israeli-Palestinian negotiations give Netanyahu greater leverage, according to the former negotiator. The prime minister “knows that the administration believes the only way this Israeli-Palestinian problem is going to be resolved is negotiations, and so he’s convinced himself that they need him more than he needs them,” Miller said. “I don’t think he’s looking for a confrontation, but he’s willing to stand his ground.” Especially, Miller added, since we are talking about Jerusalem here: “Building in Jerusalem is as natural as breathing.”

To be fair to Obama: The timing of the announcement again seemed calculated to provoke and to assert Netanyahu’s (new?) upper hand; East Jerusalem lies on the far side of the 1967 Green Line; and Israel also just announced the construction of more than 1000 homes in Ariel, an unequivocal West Bank settlement.

But to be fair to Netanyahu: It is nigh impossible to imagine a final deal that does not include some sort of Israeli sovereignty in all of Jerusalem; East Jerusalem was never included in any freeze deal; and even the freeze deal that was reached a year ago has since expired. “Building in Jerusalem was never considered off-limits by either the government of Israel or frankly—with respect to the Obama administration, they basically acquiesed in it,” Miller noted. He also pointed out that the neighborhood the announcement concerns is one that Netanyahu himself made a move on when he was prime minister in the late 1990s.

(Miller opined that the recent Republican surge is the least important factor here, though it does mean that Obama will have enough to worry about over the next two years without also pushing the Israelis on East Jerusalem as well. Certainly this is, as Ben Smith noted, the first post-midterms test of Obama’s stomach for foreign confrontation.)

To put it another way: Neither opposition leader Tzipi Livni, of Kadima, whose GA speech yesterday was fairly well received by the left, nor any other plausible leader of Israel is going to be any more willing to cede Israeli claims to all of Jerusalem.

Even among those who - like Livni - have been willing in the past to (God forbid) divide Jerusalem, it's always been on the basis of 'Jewish neighborhoods stay Jewish and Arab neighborhoods go to the 'Palestinians.' If that's the formula, there is no reason to protest Jewish building in places like Ramot, Har Homa, or - for that matter - Ramat Shlomo. They've always been Jewish and will always remain Jewish.

Obama is fighting a hopeless battle in Jerusalem. And he's brought it on himself.

Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:30 PM