Thursday, April 2, 2009

Netanyahu is playing his cards well

(Ted Belman-analyst-network).The Netanyahu government is looking good to me. First, Netanyahu studiously avoided giving anything away upfront to the consternation of the EU and Livni.

He offered negotiations on "three parallel tracks, economic, security and diplomatic" with the Palestinian Authority. As the NYT put it Netanyahu Offers Conciliation, but Not Concessions

His sole position on the peace process was that he would abide by all signed agreements.

As Minister Lieberman made forcefully clear today, that didn't include Annapolis. The International community was dying to make discussions under Annapolis binding on Israel but the Netanyahu government would have none of it and came out of the gate stressing this point.

In Understanding Netanyahu, I pointed out that Bibi intended to take Bush's "vision speech" of 2002 as his point of reference.

Even the Roadmap isn't a signed agreement. Let's look at it:


" [..] A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established, and a clear, unambiguous acceptance by both parties of the goal of a negotiated settlement as described below".

The emphasis on a "negotiated settlement" precludes an imposed solution which is currently what the Obama Administration would like to do..

" However, as a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties, and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined below".

There is no way progress can be made under this roadmap so long as there is violence and the Arabs will never give up on the use of violence.

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