To Move the Americans Easily

Yesterday, when I read the news that the United States will soon announce the opening of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, I recalled an item that was broadcast on 9 July on the Hashavua programme with Miki Rosenthal. The piece showed Netanyahu, who was secretly filmed during a visit to a bereaved family in the Ofra settlement in 2001 In the item Netanyahu relates how he succeeded in fooling the Americans and Palestinians and how he succeeded in eliminating the Oslo agreements.

Netanyahu brags to his guests and exposes the trick he used on the Americans and Palestinians.  “I conditioned signing the Hebron agreement on American agreement that there would be no withdrawals from “defined military sites”, and that Netanyahu would decide what these sites are – like, for example, the entire Jordan Valley. “From that moment,” he winks at them, “I stopped the Oslo agreements.” Netanyahu also expresses in the tape his opinion about America. “I know what is America, America is something that can be easily moved,” and the Palestinian partners for negotiations “want to throw us into the sea.” In short, Netanyahu is a stunning example of what is termed in law “good faith negotiations.”

Today (21 August) in the New York Times Israeli and Palestinian experts are interviewed on this topic.. It is difficult to find much optimism.  Zacharia al Qaq, Vice President of Al Quds University, describes these talks “the option of the crippled and the helpless.” These negotiations will be conducted between those who are not interested in a solution to the conflict (Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition) and those unable to bring it to an end (the weak Palestinian Authority led by Abu Mazen). The (Israeli) journalist Nahum Barnea said to the paper that “most Israelis have decided that nothing is going to come out of it, that it has no bearing on their lives. So why should they care?”

Yossi Beilin believes it was a huge mistake by the United States to set a one year deadline for the negotiations, which in his opinion will not occur. Netanyahu, he states, was not elected to solve the problem of Palestinian refugees and to divide Jerusalem. The close advisor of Netanyahu, Dore Gold, agrees with Beilin when asked what are the red lines of Israel: “united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty and military rule over the Jordan border.”

In the meantime Netanyahu, who “knows what is America,” will gain as much time as possible waiting for elections in the United States and then when no American running in the elections will want to mess with him, he will again move them easily.

This article originally appeared in the critical analysis site Haokets and was translated to English by the Alternative Information Center (AIC).