On May 20, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured President Barack Obama accurately on the war history of the pre-June 5, 1967 armistice lines between Israel and Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. (No one called the Jordanians living in the West Bank and the Egyptians living in Gaza Palestinians back then).
Netanyahu accurately told the president that a country nine miles wide (as the pre-June 5, 1967 armistice lines fall) is indefensible.
Netanyahu accurately gave President Obama a history lesson.
It was an astonishing confrontation with an American president. Pushed to the wall, Netanyahu did not flinch from rejecting indefensible borders. By the time Obama spoke to AIPAC May 20, he evinced a glimmer of understanding. Notwithstanding Obamas friendly approach to AIPAC and Netanyahus phenomenal reception by Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress, America-Israel relations and Obama-Netanyahu relations seem to be at an all time low.
Netanyahu could have tried another approach. He could have said to President Obama:
Mr. President, you have said that Israel and the Palestinians should negotiate on the basis of the pre-June 5, 1967 lines, with land swaps; that the Palestinians should not declare a state unilaterally; that the Palestinians should recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end all claims against Israel.
Mr. President, you are one-hundred percent right.
Netanyahu [thinking to himself, but not saying, that the pre-June 5, 1967 lines are what the late Abba Eban called Auschwitz borders; thinking to himself, but not saying, that Israel at nine miles wide is not even a bargaining position; thinking to himself, but not saying, that it is chutzpah for one country to dictate to another what its borders should be; thinking to himself, but not saying, that the pre-June 5, 1967 borders invited war, not peace; thinking to himself, but not saying, that the Palestinian Authority tells its people, in Arabic, that Israel has no right to exist and that the Holocaust didnt happen thinking all this, but saying none of it] continues:
Mr. President, I accept your plan for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians right now.
You are saying to Israel: Use the pre-June 5, 1967 borders as a basis for negotiating a final settlement. I accept this completely. No ifs, ands, or buts. No qualifications. No waffling. No diplomatese. No equivocation. You made a proposal, you asked for a crystal clear response and you have it. Thank you, Mr. President, for your ideas for Israel.
Now, as a basis for negotiations, you have also told the Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish state, and to end all claims against Israel. Call me when when the Palestinians have accepted your ideas for them completely, no ifs, ands, or buts. No qualifications. No waffling. No diplomatese. No equivocation.
Thank you again, Mr. President. When you have the Palestinians answer, let me know. We will sit down to begin negotiations the same day.
However, in complete accordance with your ideas, Mr. President, should the Palestinians not respond to you in the same positive, unequivocal way I have, I will have to seek alternatives, because nature abhors a vacuum. So does politics.
We have been in a political vacuum for 47 years now, Mr. President, since 1964, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was founded, with its charter calling for the destruction of Israel; since 1967, when the Palestinians (then under Jordan) joined in the genocidal war that Arabs states declared against Israel; since 1988, when the PLO began to flirt with recognition of Israel and this spurred the founding of Hamas, whose charter took a page out of the PLOs book and called for Israels destruction; since 1991, when the PLO, with a fig leaf covering its charter, met Israel at Madrid for a peace conference, but never negotiated; since 1993, when the PLO met on the White House lawn for a Declaration of Principles, but followed up with bus bombings all over Israel; since 2000, when the Palestinian Authority, having agreed to negotiations with Israel, catalyzed the emergence of Hamas.
You see, Mr. President, we have a longstanding political vacuum with the Palestinians. So that if the Palestinians do not unequivocally accept your call for the acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state if they torpedo your proposal for peace negotiations Israel will have to take unilateral steps in the West Bank and Gaza.
We may annex these territories to Israel; or we may keep our security presence there, as now; or we may decide on another strategy. We shall do so because the Palestinians will not accept your ideas.
This is how we shall leave it for now. I am waiting for your phone call telling me of the Palestinians complete acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, and the Palestinians end to all claims against Israel, as the basis for negotiations.
Had Prime Minister Netanyahu said this to Obama, he would be waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the phone call.
It would be perfectly clear who is holding up the peace.
The PLO, Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority will not accept Israel as a Jewish state, and will not end all claims against Israel.
Lucky for Obama, Netanyahu did not accept the pre-June 5, 1967 lines as the basis for negotiations. Had Netanyahu done so, this is what the Palestinian organizations would have said to themselves:
The unyielding rejection of Israel first got Israel out of Sinai in 1982; then got Israel out of Gaza in 2005; and now, for the first time since 1967, Israel has accepted the pre-June 5, 1967 lines, albeit as a basis for negotiation. This means that our intransigence pays off. We will outlast Israel. Now that were pushing Israel back to 1967, we will just keep pushing until we push it out of existence. We dont need to accept Obamas proposals.
To which Obama, the UN, the EU and the public would have no answer. For all of them, it would be hard not to acknowledge the 130-year-old Palestinian approach to Jewish farms and cities in Palestine that they should not exist.
At the beginning of his presidency, Obama focused on an explosive symbol: settlements. This spoke to the Palestinians worst fear: that they were occupied, and would be forever. Obama should have focused on land swaps a non-threatening idea acceptable to both Israel and the Palestinians. Obama did not utter the phrase.
Now, Obama focuses on an explosive symbol for Israelis: the 1967 borders. This speaks to the Israelis worst fear: security. Instead, Obama should have focused on the non-threatening idea of land swaps, which he now uttered only in conjunction with the 1967 lines.
Obama chooses threatening rather than non-threatening terms. Netanyahu could have sidelined the threat by calling Obamas bluff, by saying: You are one-hundred percent right, Mr. President. Response from the Palestinians? Silence or bluster either way, clarity.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
