If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were asked how he wants history to remember him, he would never say, “as the leader who brought peace to Israel,” nor would he answer, “as the person who settled Jews throughout the Land of Israel.” How deeply etched in his consciousness is the challenge of preventing Israel from becoming a binational state — a topic which, it should be noted, has started popping up in his speeches recently? It is still too hard to tell. Regardless, even the threat of losing Israel’s Jewish majority and its democratic character has no chance of competing against the one item that tops the list of Netanyahu’s anxieties: his fear of a nuclear holocaust.
Netanyahu wants history to remember him as nothing less than the man who saved his people from annihilation. This is the source of all his positions as the head of government, of all his diplomatic maneuvering and of all his internal political double-dealings. It is also the source of the overlapping timetables for this week's renewed negotiations with the Palestinians over a permanent arrangement and the negotiations channel for an arrangement with Iran to put an end to the nuclear threat hovering over Israel.
US President Barack Obama realized that only a death sentence, set out in the form of a final deadline for the Iranian nuclear program, without any trickery or chicanery, could convince Netanyahu to pay the cost in Palestinian currency. A very blatant hint that these two channels were related was provided this week on July 29 by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon during a visit to a military base. Ya’alon, an ardent advocate of managing rather than resolving the conflict, explained that ''There were many strategic considerations” behind the decision to renew the negotiations and release Palestinian prisoners, and that these “might yet be revealed in the future.”
A date nine months from this July passes over the next meeting of the UN General Assembly, to which the Palestinians have threatened to appeal in the event of an American failure. In the spring of 2014, the clouds may open up, offering a convenient opportunity for American or Israeli jets to fly over Iranian airspace.
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