Akiva Eldar: So what if Obama wants to move peace process forward?
[Akiva Eldar is an Israeli journalist and author, currently a chief political columnist and editorial writer for the Israeli national daily Ha'aretz. His columns also appear regularly in the Ha'aretz-International Herald Tribune edition, as well as in the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun.]
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat opposite U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday, perhaps he was overcome by the sullen recollection from the days when he served as deputy foreign minister under David Levy. Even then, 17 years ago, there was an American president who entertained the idea of resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict and thought that this concept was incompatible with the expansion of settlements.
That president, George Bush, whose name would later acquire the description "senior," informed the Israeli prime minister that he had to choose between advancing relations with the Arabs and American aid to help absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Union, or bolstering the creeping annexation of the territories and embroiling Israel in a crisis with the world's only superpower.
Netanyahu was among those who urged then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to go for broke by continuing to build in the settlements while enlisting the support of Congress in the fight for financial aid. Netanyahu certainly remembers how that story ended. Israel lost the loan guarantees totaling $10 billion, and the Likud lost its grip on power.
Netanyahu could have glanced Tuesday at Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak, who was dragged by him to New York, and cracked a smile of satisfaction.
In the latter stages of 1992, a publicly aired disagreement with the United States over settlements and the peace process was enough to topple a government in Israel. By the end of 2009, an Israeli prime minister has no compunction about returning home empty-handed from a tripartite summit with the American president and the Palestinian leader.
Who will remove him from power? Defense Minister Barak? The three musketeers from Meretz? Even public opinion and the press have long lost interest and faith in negotiations with the Palestinians (as well as with Syria and Lebanon)...
Read entire article at Ha'aretz
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat opposite U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday, perhaps he was overcome by the sullen recollection from the days when he served as deputy foreign minister under David Levy. Even then, 17 years ago, there was an American president who entertained the idea of resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict and thought that this concept was incompatible with the expansion of settlements.
That president, George Bush, whose name would later acquire the description "senior," informed the Israeli prime minister that he had to choose between advancing relations with the Arabs and American aid to help absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Union, or bolstering the creeping annexation of the territories and embroiling Israel in a crisis with the world's only superpower.
Netanyahu was among those who urged then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to go for broke by continuing to build in the settlements while enlisting the support of Congress in the fight for financial aid. Netanyahu certainly remembers how that story ended. Israel lost the loan guarantees totaling $10 billion, and the Likud lost its grip on power.
Netanyahu could have glanced Tuesday at Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak, who was dragged by him to New York, and cracked a smile of satisfaction.
In the latter stages of 1992, a publicly aired disagreement with the United States over settlements and the peace process was enough to topple a government in Israel. By the end of 2009, an Israeli prime minister has no compunction about returning home empty-handed from a tripartite summit with the American president and the Palestinian leader.
Who will remove him from power? Defense Minister Barak? The three musketeers from Meretz? Even public opinion and the press have long lost interest and faith in negotiations with the Palestinians (as well as with Syria and Lebanon)...