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June 23, 2009
Exclusive: Decoding Netanyahu
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies on June 14th was more than an exercise in judicious phraseology. It returned realism to Israeli foreign policy and set out a clear and precise diplomatic formula that reflects the worldview of the Israeli majority. Rather than dwell on issues secondary to Israel's survival, he set forth the principles upon which a lasting peace could be achieved. His speech was historic, if only because it set aside rhetoric in favor of political realities.
With the experience of Gaza fixed in his mind, Netanyahu insisted that any future Palestinian state must be denied an army, denied the right to import weapons, denied control over its air space, and denied the capacity to enter into alliances with terrorist regimes like Iran. In imposing these conditions, he put the world on notice that Israeli support for Palestinian statehood would no longer come at Israel’s expense.
Instead of leaving the complex issues of Jerusalem, refugees and recognition of a Jewish state for “final status talks” in the hope that the peace process would create new "facts on the ground", he laid out the basic principles upon which there could be no compromise – no “right of return” for Palestinian refugees (other than to their own state), Palestinian recognition of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination – a right the Palestinians demand for themselves, but deny to the Israelis - and no division of Jerusalem. These demands were based on Jewish national and historical connections to the Land stretching back 3,500 years. On the other hand, despite Arab claims to the contrary, there has never been a Palestinian Arab state at any point in history much less with Jerusalem as its capital.
Netanyahu’s approach breaks from established tradition. In the past, the Arabs offered “peace proposals” as incentives for the U.S. and Europeans to pressure Israel into making strategically important concessions that would have led to the gradual destruction of the Jewish state. Israel then made counterproposals that inevitably were rejected by the Arabs, at which point, the Western powers came up with new “peace initiatives” and the cycle repeated itself. This time, however, Netanyahu demanded that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state in the first instance, inferring that the Arab world must move beyond Dar al Islam (the theological doctrine that all lands once ruled by Islam remain part of the Islamic trust and must be re-conquered) and accept the fact that the land now dominated by Israel has been irrevocably lost to the Jewish people just as Andalusia – the Moorish Kingdom of Southern Spain – was lost to Christendom over 500 years ago. Only when this psychological and political barrier has been crossed can the Arab-Israeli conflict be resolved.
The problem, of course, is that the Arab world is not prepared to forego Dar al Islam or accept a Jewish-majority state in the Middle East anytime soon. The Palestinian reaction to his speech included insults like "worthless and meaningless," "nothing but a hoax," that it had "destroyed all peace initiatives and [chances for] a solution," and some even went as far as accusing Netanyahu of being "a liar and a crook." The chief
Palestinian negotiator, Saab Erakat, announced that, "In a thousand years, no Palestinian leader will accept this."
In the Arab mindset, Israel, as a Jewish State, remains an enemy to be destroyed. The Palestinians understand very well that if they are denied the right to flood Israel with Arab refugees (most of whom have never lived there and have no desire to return), denied Jerusalem as an Arab capital, and are forced to accept the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in a Jewish state in their midst, their master plan for the phased destruction of Israel would be at an end, and they would have no option other than to share the land with the Jews.
Netanyahu’s fundamental principles for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict may do little to pacify the Arab world, the international media, or the diplomatic corps in Brussels or Washington, but at least he has set forth his parameters for future negotiations. Arab acceptance of the three conditions he outlined will not necessarily guarantee peace, but the absence of their acceptance absolutely guarantees future wars. Nations can compromise on many things, but never the terms of their existence.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Mark Silverberg is a foreign policy analyst for the Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel), a Contributing Editor for Family Security Matters, Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) and the New Media Journal and is a member of Hadassah’s National Academic Advisory Board. His book The Quartermasters of Terror: Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Jihad and his articles have been archived under www.marksilverberg.com and www.analyst-network.com.
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