Extremist Rabble-Rousing

The tug-of-war over rewards that Israel will get from the United States for its agreement to a 90-day moratorium on settlement-building in the occupied territories continues. The rewards being offered at present include 20 state-of-the-art jet fighter aircraft worth $3 billion, plus a cornucopia of political concessions. These include a promise by the United States to veto any United Nations resolution Israel finds objectionable, such as anything dealing with Israel’s nuclear arsenal or any Palestinian attempt to declare statehood without Israel’s consent.

Israel is to get all this and more for agreeing to an ill-defined “freeze” on settlement expansion lasting three months. The “freeze” excludes East Jerusalem right from the start. Netanyahu’s government could sit it all out without making much effort at all. Finally, it concludes with Washington’s promise to never demand any future halt to Israeli settlement expansion once the 90-day moratorium has lapsed.

Despite this, Netanyahu expects to suffer severe criticism from his own Likud Party and other extremist right-wing factions for these few meaningless “freeze” days. Commentators in major Israeli newspapers vacillate between likening Netanyahu to a brothel’s madam and just one of its prostitutes. It’s as yet unclear whether the rabble-rousing stems from genuine political stubbornness or is intended to put pressure on the United States to up the ante with its gifts.

Everything began on Sept. 29. A 10-month construction freeze had just ended three days earlier, and the Palestinians had ended their participation in negotiations that had been ongoing since Sept. 2. Then the neoconservative publicist David Makovsky announced that President Obama had written Netanyahu, offering him a generous aid package for a two-month continuation of the building freeze. The two-month freeze was extended to 90 days sometime later. Included in the U.S. offer was America’s agreement to allow Israel to continue its occupation of the entire Jordan Valley indefinitely. Makovsky, whose article appeared on a pro-Israel lobby’s website, has excellent relations with Obama’s Middle East advisor, Dennis Ross.

Rumors and speculation have been rife ever since. On Sunday, Netanyahu is reported to have told representatives of the Likud Party that he had no written list of what the Americans were offering Israel. As long as that remained the case, he would not propose any new building freeze to his cabinet. In the event that the Israeli parliament became deadlocked over the offer, Netanyahu had tempted two ministers of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, promising them construction projects in Orthodox quarters as soon as the freeze ended.