NOT surprisingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not commit to a two-state solution that US President Donald Trump recently voiced support for. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition simply will not enter into such negotiations that they believe would place Israel at untenable risk. His education minister and head of the right-wing Jewish Home Party, Naftali Bennett, has said on social media: “As long as the Jewish Home is in the government there will not be a Palestinian state established”. One of Netanyahu’s closest allies in his party, Tzachi Hanegbi, said on Israel Army Radio: “There will not be a state in the classic form,” suggesting a relationship more akin to the US and its territory, Puerto Rico. We know how that turned out. The US, it will be remembered, was widely criticized for a response deemed woefully inadequate and slow to Hurricane Maria which killed almost 3,000 people in Puerto Rico last year.
Netanyahu said not a word as he heard Trump speaking at their joint New York news conference late last month about favoring a two-state solution. Trump’s seeming retraction of this scenario after their meeting the next day likely stemmed from Netanyahu urging Trump not to get him into trouble with his coalition partners who have quickly poured cold water over the idea.
In a later interview, Netanyahu said he would like to see the Palestinians be self-governing in a demilitarized state with none of the powers to threaten Israel. “I want the Palestinians to govern themselves, but not to be able to threaten us”.
Granted, any country that borders another needs to feel that that country does not threaten it. But is what Netanyahu described commensurate with a state? A state means being sovereign and independent. The kind of Palestinian state Netanyahu is referring to is neither. In a Palestinian state of Netanyahu’s creation, Israel will control almost every single facet of Palestinian life. On the lookout for anti-Israeli machinations, Israeli spies will be planted, Palestinian office conversations will be monitored, schoolbooks will be censored, phones will be tapped, emails will be hacked. This Big Brother state will violate all privacy laws.
The sovereignty that Netanyahu speaks of for the Palestinians is not the customary international model. His is one that neither he nor his right-wing camp will ever accept, believing it to be a demographic, existential threat to Israel.
Last week, when Trump said he supports a two-state solution, he was publicly voicing for the first time his stance on a Palestinian state. Trump had not hitherto ruled out a two-state deal, but he’d not previously presented it emphatically as his goal. His sudden endorsement of a two-state solution was all the more surprising given that he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and firmly backed Israel at the UN. On top of that, he cut more than $500 million in aid to the Palestinians and UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinians, revoked the visas of the Palestinian representative to the US and his family, and closed the PLO office in Washington.
Trump’s comments could not have been music to Netanyahu’s ears. Doubtless not as troubling as many of the things Netanyahu heard from Barack Obama over the years, but jarring nonetheless. However, the vagueness of Trump’s comment will not have overly troubled Netanyahu. Trump’s two-state endorsement leaves plenty of wriggle room. He was ambivalent about whether the conflict should be solved by a one- or two-state solution and was happy with whatever the two sides wanted. Netanyahu has pushed for neither.
But if now, the Trump administration has indeed begun pressing Israel to embrace the idea of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu is insisting on something less. The two-state solution, as in the common understanding — a completely independent Palestinian state — is most definitely not on his radar.
