The Palestinians reach for the nuclear option. Good for them.
Binyamin Netanyahu spoke during the Rabin Memorial ceremony on Wednesday, and as is his wont, informed the Israeli public he is Rabin’s rightful heir. Anyone who did not gag over this abomination, whose memory reached 15 years back and remembered Netanyahu leading the incitement against Rabin, could remember he already pulled that trick once. In early 2006, about a day after Ariel Sharon was hospitalized for the last and final time, Netanyahu sped from one TV station to another in order to announce he is the heir of the man whom just a few weeks earlier he termed a dictator. Any why does Netanyahu think he may don Rabin’s mantle? Because Rabin spoke of the intent to create a Palestinian “semi-state”, while Netanyahu is willing to promise them a full state, albeit a de-militarized one.
Or so he claims. Netanyahu will soon mark two years in office. The negotiations with the Palestinians did not actually start, and he insists on Israel’s right to keep on building in the Occupied Territories. He demands the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish State” – thereby consigning the Israeli Palestinians to the permanent status of second class citizens – but he is unwilling to show them a map charting the borders of that “Jewish State”. He knows that once he produces a map, his political doom will be upon him: the right wing will leave the government, and he will find himself subject to the dubious mercies of Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni. Netanyahu’s goal – same as the one of his earlier term as PM – is to burn time, while it away, and, by staying obdurate, break the Palestinian will. And if he’d be really lucky, they will turn to violence again: Israel practically begs them to, and Palestinian violence would be an excellent excuse to end the pretense of peace talks.
Unfortunately for Netanyahu, there are more and more signs the Palestinians are getting tired of this game, “grind the 22% left of Palestine”. More and more, we hear senior Palestinian officials say they intend to turn to the UN so that it would recognize the independence of Palestine along the 1967 lines. Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad has already publicly announced that come August 2011, the Palestinians will declare their independence, come what may. Hanan Ashrawi, one of the Palestinians’ most accomplished speakers, recently said the PLO is debating the issue internally.
As a result, when the idea is discussed, Israel – and its enablers abroad – panics. Israeli officials admitted to the New York Times they estimate most of the world will recognize the Palestinian state, and that this move will interfere with Israel’s attempt to grab more Palestinian lands (or, as the more stolid NYT phrased it, “It would also pre-empt any efforts by Israel to keep some settlements and negotiate modified borders”. As part of the panic, the Israeli officials claimed such a move would be “contrary to the Oslo Accords”.
Pull the other one. Ariel Sharon announced in 2002 that the “Oslo Accords are dead” [Heb]. At the time he was holding the junior position of, umm, Israeli prime minister. He was in the middle of a long-range campaign intended to destroy the Palestinian Authority, during which he demolished many symbols of Palestinian sovereignty, and incessantly invaded Palestinian territories. I.e, acted as if the Accords were not just dead but also buried.
Even aside from Sharon’s announcement, the Oslo Accords were a temporary pact, designed to end after five years, i.e. in May 1999. That was just before the time the Israelis have demoted Netanyahu to the status of concerned citizens and, in order to avoid giving Netanyahu any chances at the polls, Yassir Arafat ordered his forces to keep the quiet. The end of the Oslo Accord passed without anyone – including that greatest error of the Israeli electorate, Ehud Barak – paying any attention. Since they, they are nothing but a tattered fig leaf, used by the Israeli government.
In response to Ashrawi’s comments, the Director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman (who, to paraphrase Ehud Olmert, is a caricature of a human rights organization leader) said that such Palestinian intentions are “a part of the delegitimization campaign against Israel”. You’re doing it wrong, Abe: a declaration of Palestinian independence within the 1967 borders, followed by international support, would in essence be a disavowal of any claim for territories within Israel.
Foxman further demanded that “All the exit doors have to be closed for the Palestinians so they have no choice but to negotiate”. A rather nice image, isn’t it? It should also be noted how swiftly a reasonable demand, supported by most of the world – a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders – mutates into a part of the so-called “delegitimization campaign against Israel”.
It’s not at all certain the US will support such a motion in the Security Council. The Administration is likely to come under heavy pressure by, umm, all sorts of lobbies who claim adamantly that saying they have the capacity to bring heavy pressure is anti-Semitism. But, after all official Israel has done to the Obama Administration, Israel will have to pay a hefty price for a Security Council veto. This one won’t be automatic.
There remains the General Assembly. This august body presents Israel with a unique problem: it’s the same forum which announced on 29th November 1947 that Palestine should be partitioned into two countries, one Jewish and one Arab. The first one is in existence for some 62 years now, still doing all it can to prevent the creation of the second, and – since 1967 – occupying its territories. Presented this way, Israel will be left with no argument in the Assembly – unless it will be willing to accept Sharon’s suggestion (in 1998) that it will disavow the 1947 decision, thereby finally losing its own legitimacy.
After two rather sordid decades, there finally seems to be a worthy Palestinian leadership. Israel must not be allowed to destroy it. It would be a good idea for the Palestinians to announce that were Israel to reject a UN decision recognizing Palestine, all official Palestinians offices will dissolve themselves, and the Palestinians will all immediately ask for Israeli citizenship. Maybe then, when they are faced with this stark choice, Israelis will agree to save what is left of the collapsing vision of the two-state solution. Israel has already demonstrated, amply, it cannot be trusted with it.