“Historic,” Netanyahu Style

This Time, It Was Israel’s Prime Minister Who Missed a Great Chance

Maybe Benjamin Netanyahu should have majored in international law instead of architecture. Israel was prepared to be “generous” when it came to a future Palestinian state, said Netanyahu in an address to the U.S. Congress. What would really matter to the peace process with the Palestinians would be the return of Palestinian territory annexed by Israel, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with “generosity.” That sentence says as much about Netanyahu’s system of map grid coordinates as does his inference that the Jewish settlers in the West Bank aren’t occupiers.

That was the low point in a speech that one might describe as disappointing, at best, and one that still left open the question of whatever possessed his advisors to advertise the speech as “historic” in the first place. It may be a giant step for Netanyahu personally to utter the words “Palestinian state,” but for Israel his supposed offer wasn’t any better than that which his predecessor, Ehud Barak, put on the table at Camp David in 2000; in fact, in comparison, it was worse.

Back in 2000, a popular saying held that the Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Now it’s Netanyahu who missed an opportunity. In the countries surrounding Israel, not one stone stands atop another; never has a peace agreement with the Palestinians been more necessary than now. But Netanyahu apparently lacks the vision necessary to see the architecture of a Middle East peace that would primarily benefit Israel.