Israel Matzav

Netanyahu learning from 'Palestinians'?

The 'Palestinian leadership' is notorious for saying in English what the Americans want to hear, and saying what they really think in Arabic. Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to learn from them.

Or is he?

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has promised not to evacuate West Bank settlements. He made the comments Friday in Davos, Switzerland, amid three separate meetings he held there with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

“I have no intention of evacuating any settlement or uprooting any Israelis,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew during a briefing for Israeli journalists on the nine-month negotiating cycle, which ends in April.

His statement, which runs counter to the assumption that a final-status agreement would involve the evacuation of settlements, was not republished by the Prime Minister’s Office.

An Israeli official cautioned on Saturday night not to equate territorial concessions Israel might make to the Palestinians with statements about settlement evacuations.

Netanyahu is “against uprooting settlements, but irrespective of where the final borders are going to be.

He thinks Jews should be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state,” the official said.

But of course, the 'Palestinians' will not allow Jews to live in a 'future Palestinian state.' Those Jews would - God Save us - be dead in no-time flat. What Netanyahu is apparently trying to do is to set up a situation which the revenants have long feared as the absolute worst-case scenario: The IDF pulls out of some or all of Judea and Samaria, and they are left to the tender mercies of the 'Palestinians.' No compensation and no way to move back into a rump state of Israel, with the values of their homes immediately declining to zero.

In case you have any doubt as to what's going on, listen to Israel's chief negotiator bottle washer, Tzipi Livni. 

“No one wants to evacuate settlements,” Livni said.

“Most of the settlements are in blocs and the people there will stay in their homes. About the rest [of the settlements], their fate will be determined in the negotiations.”

It would not be possible, she added, to both maintain the isolated settlements and make peace.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Davos Conference, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Tzipi Livni

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:24 AM