Europe realizing that it will have to accommodate 'intransigent' Netanyahu
Binyamin Netanyahu can be a nasty dude. He lectured President Obama in front of the news cameras in May. He refused to renew a 'settlement freeze' that was laid to waste by the 'Palestinians.' And unfortunately, he sent special forces to dismantle the Jewish town of Migron a few weeks ago. But give him credit for one thing: His stubbornness is making some European countries rethink their positions and realign their expectations with respect to Israel and the 'Palestinians.' This is from Evelyn Gordon.In July, France became the first European country to publicly adopt a position every Israeli government has deemed essential for Israeli-Palestinian peace, but which Europe consistently refused to endorse: that any agreement must result in “two nation-states,” including “the nation-state of Israel for the Jewish people.”Read the whole thing. I still don't see the Europeans going and out and pushing the 'Palestinians' to make concessions. It may be a start, but it's a very small start.
And last week, one of the most pro-Palestinian countries in Europe not only followed suit, but broke new ground. Addressing the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez first declared Spain’s “commitment” to Israel as “a homeland of the Jewish people” – a position Madrid opposed as recently as July. Then she added something that, again, all Israeli governments have deemed essential for peace, but Europe has never been willing to state openly: Any solution to the Palestinian refugee problem must “be just and agreed,” while also “allowing the preservation of Israel’s current character.” In other words, the Palestinian goal of relocating the refugees to Israel is out.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of this shift. For years, the EU has demanded a host of specific Israeli concessions on final-status issues (borders, Jerusalem, etc.) while adamantly refusing to demand any Palestinian concessions. Hence, every statement it issued reiterated a formula carefully crafted to avoid offending Palestinian sensibilities. It called for two states, Israel and Palestine, with no elaboration on the nature of the former, thus leaving open the possibility of an “Israel” transformed into a binational or Palestinian-majority state by an influx of millions of refugee descendants, as Palestinians want. And it urged “an agreed, just, fair and realistic solution” to the refugee issue, without specifying that the Palestinians’ preferred solution of resettling them all in Israel doesn’t qualify.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, European Union, France, Palestinian intransigence, Spain
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:34 AM
2 Comments:
I don't see that happening either, with the Russians providing cover for the Palestinians. There will be no negotiations for decades.
It's progress I'm glad to see, however tiny.
I think most of the western powers (especially Obama as the US President) have been surprised that Netanyahu doesn't follow the "aw shucks, ok, we'll do an octuple-backflip if it will make the Arabs happy" that has been demanded of Israel for decades.
As much as I dislike relying on security issues to make Israel's case (rather than Jewish rights), I think Netanyahu has succeeded in getting many of the western countries to understand that Israeli concessions bring on MORE WAR not peace.
How big do they want the next war? The more Israel concedes (G-d forbid), the bigger the next war will be.
Israeli concessions => death, war, turbulence, suffering, danger, instability in the region, global problems, plus more death and war (in addition to threatening Israel's very existence, which no Israeli government should tolerate).
Asking Israel to bring on a worse war by making concessions isn't in the western countries' interests and they might be figuring this out (at long last).
The Arabs aren't westerners. Giving them concessions only makes their behavior monstrously worse.
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