Is Israel's opposition leader siding with Bibi against French initiative?
It seems that Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog is more interested in entering the coalition and becoming foreign minister than he is at promoting the French initiative to advance the two-state solution.
The timing of the May 15 Jerusalem visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault could not have been more perfect, killing as it did two birds with one stone.
First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to cooperate with the French peace initiative dealt a blow to the very essence of Israel’s public diplomacy — the claim that Israel yearns for peace but does not have a Palestinian partner. The cold shoulder that Netanyahu gave the French diplomatic initiative confirms that the speech he delivered seven years ago at Bar-Ilan University, declaring his commitment to the two-state solution, was not worth the paper it was written on. On the other hand, the warm response of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to that same initiative illustrates to the international community that the peace rejectionist does not necessarily reside in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah.
Second, Ayrault’s empty-handed return to Paris could just be the final nail in the coffin of the initiative to broaden the base of Netanyahu’s narrow government by adding the opposition Zionist Camp to the ruling coalition. In fact, Netanyahu was in a bind from the minute the French initiative was first presented some four months ago, in late January, by former French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. It forced Netanyahu to choose between entering into a peace process that would entail a freeze on West Bank settlement construction and result in a coalition crisis his right-wing coalition partners will not accept, including the danger of a rupture within his Likud Party, and a crisis with the international community along with a deterioration of security in the territories.
Not surprisingly, Netanyahu chose the second option. He took advantage of a joint Feb. 16 news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin — on the day the initiative was formally presented to Israel by the French ambassador to Israel, Patrick Maisonnave — to label the French initiative “puzzling." But Netanyahu’s objection did not deter the French. In a conversation with reporters in Paris April 21, Ayrault said, “There is no other solution to the conflict than establishing two states — one Israeli and the other Palestinian — living side by side in peace and safety [based on the 1967 borders], with Jerusalem as a shared capital.”
