Skip to main content

Netanyahu won't cut any deals in Trump's office

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's commitment to the two-state solution changes entirely depending on the public or person he is trying to please, and he couldn't advocate it at his Feb. 15 meeting at the White House even if he wanted to.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem February 12, 2017. REUTERS/Gali Tibbon/Pool - RTSY9AO
Read in 

The stand taken this week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict brings to mind the witticism of late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, on the eve of his departure for the October 1991 Madrid Peace Conference: “The sea is the same sea, and the Arabs are the same Arabs.” In other words, only a fool would believe that the leaders of the Arab world and the PLO, who accepted the invitation of President George H.W. Bush to sit for the first time next to a Zionist leader, had come to terms with the existence of a Jewish state. And only a leftist defeatist would hand them any territories.

Netanyahu is formulating a slightly more refined version of the same approach. The prime minister argues that he does support a two-state solution, meaning the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, as he stated in his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech. But, woefully, the sea is the same sea, and the Palestinians remain the same Palestinians. At their Feb. 15 meeting in Washington, Netanyahu will try to convince his host, President Donald Trump, that those torpedoing the two-state solution are the Palestinians, who refuse to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and not the Israelis who have been keeping them under occupation for 50 years and stealing their land.

Access the Middle East news and analysis you can trust

Join our community of Middle East readers to experience all of Al-Monitor, including 24/7 news, analyses, memos, reports and newsletters.

Subscribe

Only $100 per year.