Will Netanyahu dare to engage in regional settlement?
According to a New Wave Institute poll, most Israelis support the regional guidelines proposed by the Israeli Initiative group — namely the two-state solution, normalization of economic ties with Arab states and international security guarantees.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman seems to have a weakness for the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, especially for “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” He never misses an opportunity to shout at the top of his lungs that the emperor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is not wearing any clothes. In the days when he wore the foreign minister’s suit, Liberman presented to the United Nations General Assembly the two-state vision, in the spirit of Netanyahu's 2009 Bar-Ilan speech, as a transparent cover for a bare policy, in more ways than one.
Donned with the Defense Ministry uniform now, on Aug. 5 Liberman compared the nuclear deal with Iran to the 1938 Munich Agreement with Hitler — thus coercing Netanyahu to once again expose his empty relationship with US President Barack Obama. Dissociating himself from Liberman's provocation, Netanyahu released a statement the same day declaring, “Israel’s position on the deal with Iran remains unchanged.” This position, however, is very similar to the one Liberman presented in his Defense Ministry statement.
Before the nuclear deal was concluded, Netanyahu was careful not to explicitly mention Hitler and Munich, but he did speak about a "stunning historic mistake," and the willingness of the powers to cut a deal at any price.
By the way, Liberman's stance on the nuke agreement isn't new either. In a statement he issued on the website of his Yisrael Beitenu party in July 2015, he claimed the deal would go down in history alongside the Munich Agreement as "a dark day for the free world." The only change that has taken place since, has been Liberman moving from the opposition benches to the Cabinet table.
