Benjamin Netanyahu uttered the two states for two peoples line, finally. It was inevitable. And whatever it means politically for Israels relationship with the US, the line is a little like the death penalty in Colorado: Its on the books, but it almost never happens. Will a Palestinian state ever happen? For starters, check out the reaction of Saeb Erakat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian authority: The Palestinians wont resume peace talks with Israel for at least 1,000 years. For a variation, check out the late Abba Ebans bon mot: The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
And so, who actually pressured whom? The conventional wisdom has it that President Obama leaned hard on Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the position of Israels previous government: two states for two peoples. Lean, Obama certainly did. But why did he have to lean at all? Only because Netanyahu did not give away the store before the political tap dance even began, unlike Prime Minister Ehud Barak did in 2000, to be followed by Ariel Sharon, to be followed by Ehud Olmert.
Unlike his predecessors, Netanyahu made the Palestinians, via the agency of the US, work for the concession. Even more, Netan-yahu made Israels rock bottom conditions for a Palestinian state seem palatable. With statehood itself offered as a big concession, Netanyahu put himself in the position of making others understand that Israel will not accept Palestinian refugees, nor accept a militarized enemy right next to it. So who pressured whom?
Not only did Netanyahu get a lot of political mileage out of offering a concession (Palestinian statehood) that seems theoretical, at least for the foreseeable future, but he did not budge on natural growth within Israeli settlements. He well understood that if Gush Etzion or Maale Adumim or Karnei Shomron is a settlement a stigmatized political bastard then so is Rosh Pina, Tel Aviv, Omer, Arad, Zichron Yaakov and every other Israeli city, town, village and kibbutz. Just exactly how did all these Jewish locales get settled? Well, with Jewish settlers. The entire Zionist enterprise is a renewal of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land.
For Netanyahu to concede the illegitimacy of natural growth to accept, as Ariel Sharon once colorfully put it, that every pregnant mother in a Jewish settlement must have an abortion is to concede the illegitimacy of all Jewish settlement anywhere in Israel. Israel has already said it would trade to a Palestinian state, for the settlements, the equivalent square mileage of Negev land. Not to mention, a settlement with 1,000 people or with 10,000 people, all within the same borders, has no different effect on Palestinian aspirations. Netanyahu saw through the speciousness of the opposition to the natural growth and spurned it, as he should have.
Still, Obama did succeed in putting the Palestinian-Israeli issue on the agenda, front and center. He is now going to be forced, for the first time, to deal with the uniquely intransigent Palestinian mentality, best exemplified in 2000 when Israel offered the PA virtually everything it demanded and got nothing but a violent intifada in return. Obama will see soon enough that the people he needs to pressure are the not in 1,000 years Palestinian leaders. Good luck.
