Benjamin Netanyahu Might Be Ready to Step Boldly Into 1993

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Friday, June 12, 2009 at 10:18 am

So be cynical and presume that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Sunday speech on peace with the Palestinians isn’t going to commit Israel to anything major and will merely attempt to placate a ticked-off Obama administration. Eli Lake at The Washington Times says you’d be wrong and Netanyahu will instead for the first time embrace Palestinian statehood. That’s right: if true, Netanyahu is now ready to embrace what’s been a mainstream Israeli position for sixteen years. He’ll apparently conditionalize his support on restrictions for Palestinian sovereignty that very few people would support, particularly when demanded by an occupier — demilitarization, limited treaty-signing authority, no control over its airspace, no control over its electromagnetic spectrum, etc. — but, you know, baby steps.

More seriously, I met with Hagit Ofran, who runs the Settlement Watch Project for the Peace Now — long the vanguard of Israel’s peace movement — and she said that what she and the peace movement didn’t want Netanyahu to fail. She wants him to emerge as another Menachem Begin, a hardliner with the credibility to make real and lasting peace, as Begin did with Egypt. “I wouldn’t give up on Netanyahu,” Ofran said. If Netanyahu accepts Palestinian statehood, then he can expect broad support, both in Israel and in the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, the other day Marc Lynch read some Arabic newspapers and saw Hamas’ Khaled Meshal saying that Hamas wouldn’t be an “obstacle to a two-state solution.” Might Meshal be ready to step boldly into 1948?

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Comments

3 Comments

BLCY
Comment posted June 12, 2009 @ 8:19 am

Ahead of the presidential election in Iran, a Port Louis weapons broker, on behalf of a foreign government, is reported as offering for urgent sale the following WMD

1187 No. Tellar-Ulam 1 megaton thermonuclear fission bombs &

520 No. Jericho III High Impact ballistic missiles c/w nuclear warheads

which are now surplus to requirements.

Best cash offer over US$ 2.5m FOB will be accepted

Bids sought immediately for immediate delivery by FedEX

Successful bidder will be also entitled to receive 1000 complimentary cluster bombs plus 22 type F16 aircraft delivered FOC with main shipment

Note: no pre-qualification necessary


BLCY
Comment posted June 12, 2009 @ 3:19 pm

Ahead of the presidential election in Iran, a Port Louis weapons broker, on behalf of a foreign government, is reported as offering for urgent sale the following WMD

1187 No. Tellar-Ulam 1 megaton thermonuclear fission bombs &

520 No. Jericho III High Impact ballistic missiles c/w nuclear warheads

which are now surplus to requirements.

Best cash offer over US$ 2.5m FOB will be accepted

Bids sought immediately for immediate delivery by FedEX

Successful bidder will be also entitled to receive 1000 complimentary cluster bombs plus 22 type F16 aircraft delivered FOC with main shipment

Note: no pre-qualification necessary


Promised Land » Blog Archive » Netanyahu accepts a Palestinian state (has some tiny conditions, though)
Pingback posted June 15, 2009 @ 5:10 am

[...] his usual narrative of peace-seeking Israelis and Arab Rejectionism, and that he was “boldly stepping into 1993“. And you would probably be right in saying all [...]


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