ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent assertion that he has no intention of dismantling Israeli settlements in the West Bank is a stunning admission that he never wanted peace and that as long as he’s around, there never will be.
To be sure, this isn’t the first time Netanyahu has pledged to keep Israelis on West Bank land. In January 2013 he promised, “The days of bulldozers uprooting Jews are behind us, not ahead of us". In January 2014 he told Israel journalists, “I have no intention of evacuating any settlement or uprooting any Israeli”. And Netanyahu has recently been taking more speaking engagements in the West Bank and celebrating West Bank products and achievements.
But this time it’s different. Telling the 1,500 settlers of Barkan, at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s West Bank presence that "there will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel”, Netanyahu is directly repudiating the Trump administration's efforts to reignite peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian government. By refusing to close any Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Netanyahu has shut down President Donald Trump's efforts before they even begin.
As such, Trump should make clear his dissatisfaction with Netanyahu's comments because it undercuts the attempts of his son-in-law Jared Kushner at finding a solution. That's just fine by Netanyahu who probably quietly expresses hope that Kushner's latest trip to the region and perhaps future ones as well will yield no earth-shaking results.
Netanyahu’s comments run counter to decades of stated US policy calling for settlements to be evacuated as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. Successive US presidents have considered the settlements an obstacle to peace and have called for, at the least, a stop to their expansion. Trump is the most recent US president to say that further construction would be unhelpful.
The US, UN, the EU and even other Israeli leaders from across its political spectrum have also long backed a two-state solution. That sort of deal would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state, something that could only happen if Israel ceded the land it has occupied in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War to the Palestinians. Many Israeli settlements would need to be uprooted along the way.
By offering the alternative viewpoint so openly, Netanyahu is sending a very clear message to Kushner and thus to Trump: Don’t hold your breath trying. By the same token, by ruling out even considering the future status of West Bank settlements, Netanyahu is weakening moderates like Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas.
Netanyahu’s clear confession is much like that of a former Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, an endlessly frustrating stonewaller. It was Shamir who coined the term, “For Israel, it is permissible to lie”. Shamir had negotiated endlessly about negotiating, he said, and had intended the peace negotiations to go on endlessly, while he meanwhile went on building the settlements that made peace impossible.
Every day of non-progress that passed was a victory for Shamir. He notched up 10 years of them.
Officially, the Israeli government supports a two-state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians, which would entail relinquishing control of much of the West Bank for a Palestinian state. But despite public pronouncements, the Netanyahu government never really believed in the two-state solution. Many of Netanyahu’s right-wing Cabinet members have steered away from that commitment; Netanyahu is distancing himself as well.
Netanyahu’s recent position was largely meant for domestic consumption and a nod to his right-wing base as he attempts to consolidate his position with hard-liners in his coalition government. But ultimately it is consistent with the prime minister’s statements in the past. Telling his audience of Jewish settlers that “we are here to stay, forever,” tells us a lot about how he views the future.
