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Will European pressure push Netanyahu on right track?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces European pressure to advance talks with the Palestinians while the Likud simultaneously pushes for continued settlement expansion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2R) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) pose for a group picture with their delegations at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, February 16, 2016.       REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch   TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTX275MJ
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Former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban used to say that Israeli politicians make the right decisions only after making every mistake possible. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes the right decision only after using up all his tricks. This is how he has managed for years to deepen the occupation but talk about a two-state solution; expand the settlement enterprise but be welcomed with open arms by states that view the settlements as a violation of international law; be reprimanded by the Germans but get a submarine from them at a deep discount and lease them drones for a fortune. Will the May 1 report in the German magazine Der Spiegel about the German government's re-evaluation of its policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict push Netanyahu closer to the bottom of his bag of tricks? Might he soon be making the right decisions regarding the conflict with the Palestinians?

On Feb. 16, Israel Hayom celebrated Netanyahu’s seeming victory over the enemies of the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians: “Merkel: Now is not the time for 2-state solution,” read the headline in the daily that reflects the winds blowing from the office of the prime minister. At the end of a meeting with Netanyahu, Shlomo Cesana, the paper’s correspondent who covered the prime minister's visit to Berlin, quoted him as saying that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had “admitted that this is not the time for the two-state solution.”​ Netanyahu did not conceal his satisfaction with what he perceived as the chancellor’s updated insight. “We have here a more realistic approach to the situation in our region and to the situation between us and the Palestinians,” the prime minister told reporters. “I said this a year ago and everyone ranted and raved against me,” Netanyahu bragged.

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