The policies of Netanyahu – sworn in for the first time in the wake of Rabin’s death – differed greatly from his predecessor.
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We shall see if Obama mends fences with Netanyahu today. In Netanyahu’s mind, Palestinians can live under the effective control of Israel while remaining noncitizens – meaning they will remain in their small and confined areas of autonomy with unequal access to water and no effective control or sovereignty. It could either continue the current path of granting Israel legal and diplomatic impunity regardless of its continuous crimes and violations, or it could take bold steps like supporting UN Security Council resolutions on illegal Israeli settlements, ending the occupation and fully recognizing the State of Palestine based on the 1967 border, joining the 137 nations that have recognized Palestine.
Six Israelis were wounded in knife attacks by Palestinians on Sunday.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper quoted Robert Malley, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser on the Middle East, as saying: “The main thing the President would want to hear from Netanyahu is that, without peace talks, how does he want to move forward to prevent a one-state solution, stabilize the situation on the ground and to signal he is committed to the two-state solution”. No wonder, then, that Netanyahu can insult Obama, have members of his cabinet say that Obama is an anti-Semite, come to the USA and do something no other foreign leader has ever done (namely, try to go over the head of the President to manipulate the Congress and the public into supporting what Israel wants even though what they wanted was insane from the standpoint of global nuclear security), and then, when he fails to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal, comes here and demands a reward of more military hardware so that Obama can “prove” that he isn’t anti-Israel.
The most tangible piece of the agenda, however, is a 10-year memorandum of understanding on military cooperation between the two countries that would budget aid and lock in a plan for new weaponry to deal with what Obama’s administration said is a “dangerous neighborhood”. But getting involved in conflict in the Middle East?
Netanyahu and Palestinians: putting the peace process on life support (Anna Ferensowicz/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images) Rock-wielding Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers in Hebron.
Israeli forces gather at the scene where a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, on November 8, 2015.
In the years that followed, progress stalled. Even after Netanyahu froze construction in the West Bank, negotiations failed and bouts of fighting erupted between Israelis and Palestinians. Other threats to the region soon became far more pressing. Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time? “Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?”
Monday’s talks, which look to be more functional than warm in nature, are meant to enable a reaffirmation of the unwavering nature of the security alliance between Washington and the Jewish state. That’s understandable. No country has as much to lose as Israel if Iran gets a nuke. British and USA officials have said they believe it may have been the result of a bomb.
But many analysts and commentators doubt that the meeting will lead to significant inroads, as each has been unimpressed with the other.
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“Everyone knows they don’t like each other”, Natan Sachs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says. What’s more, 20 percent of blacks had “a lot” of sympathy for Palestinians, but only 10 percent of white respondents reported they felt that way.
