(Jpost).Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as senior officials in his office and in the Foreign Ministry, expressed satisfaction on Monday that his speech the night before had succeeded in throwing the diplomatic ball squarely back into the US, EU and Palestinian court.
Diplomatic sources pointed with approval to the response to the speech issued by US President Barack Obama, who said the prime minister's address at Bar-Ilan University was an "important step forward."
Obama made no mention in his response to the fact that Netanyahu made clear that he had no intention of freezing all settlement construction.
One government source said there was a "positive feeling" in the Prime Minister's Office that the speech was well received in the West, even if it was panned in the Arab world, and that Netanyahu succeeded in "putting a number of diplomatic balls in the air, and taking the diplomatic initiative."
According to this source, people will now be asking the Palestinians why they are not willing to return immediately to the negotiating table with Israel and why they won't recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
In Europe, too, according to government officials, the reaction to the speech was tepid to warm, but apparently enough for the EU foreign ministers to issue a statement following a discussion about the speech and the Middle East peace process that did not significantly differ from those put out by this body when Ehud Olmert was prime minister.
