Opinion Crossing the green line
Did Israel go too far for an America that is changing?
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In Washington DC,they pretended their visitor was not a head of government. He met the secretary of state and the vice president. Then he went to see the president,talked to him for 90 minutes,requested a second meeting,and yet nothing of what transpired between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu has been made public,so far. By this silence,the US is doing what it never has publicly embarrassing Israel,not merely to avenge Joe Bidens haplessness in Israel but to tell the world that its going to extract a price,finally,from its blind ally.
Couple this DC freeze with the UKs expulsion of an Israeli diplomat on Tuesday (with some speculation in the press that its the London station head of Mossad),and Israel is being told to fix its problem,on its own,and fast.
Netanyahus previous tenure as Israeli prime minister was a three-year period marked by a reignited belligerence in the Middle East,which reversed the progress made in the Yitzhak Rabin years. The hackneyed wisdom goes that Palestinians prefer the hawks (Likud) in government in Israel because,with the hawks,they know what to expect. The doves (Labour) mean what the hawks do,except that they excel at dissembling and therefore deceiving. Hackneyed or not,theres some truth to the oft-repeated observation,especially as Palestinians will tell you the same.
Thus when Bibi Netanyahus right-wing Likud tripped the centrist Kadima to form the governing coalition last year,there wasnt any genuine despair in Ramallah,not even at the sight of Bibis loony partners further to the right (notably,Avigdor Liebermans Yisrael Beiteinu and Eli Yishais Shas) who are relatively new but gamechangingly hawkish entities in Israel.
Its difficult to say how much of the current crisis is purely Netanyahus doing,and how much his hardline partners,but Bibi shares the essential premises of the argument and strategy he is applying.
That strategy is time-tested as a sure-shot deliverer. Israeli governments have used it to push Washington against the wall and bend to their will. Notwithstanding Obamas advance avowal of a renewed peace pursuit,suspended by Operation Cast Lead that ended a couple of days before he assumed office,he was at sea till he asked Netanyahu to stop building in the West Bank,including East Jerusalem. If that had restored a modicum of faith in Obamas chances,it was quickly belied when Hillary Clinton accepted Bibis offer of a 10-month settlement freeze last November which excluded natural growth of existing settlements and East Jerusalem on the justification that such an offer was unprecedented and therefore a fair ground to begin. It didnt convince those who thought that the US had,again,conceded too easily. The Palestinian leadership,at the time being more difficult than the Israelis,was appalled.
Still,Washington managed to get the two sides to agree to the indirect talks. Then Joe Biden was humiliated,and the past couple of weeks have been framed as the lowest US-Israel ties have hit in many,many years,so much so that Palestinians have begun to believe that some space has indeed opened up to recast Middle East equations.
On Netanyahus Washington visit for the AIPAC (American
Israel Public Affairs Committee) summit,the US categorically reaffirmed its commitment to Israels security. But thats as far as it went. Bibis calculations went awry because he hadnt factored in whats changed in Washington,something attributable to the Obama administrations realisation of a crucial fact,if not the mere fact of its being in office. In a break with decades of policy,America may no longer compromise its own interests for Israel or endanger its citizens worldwide. Washington knows the excruciating domestic pressure on Netanyahu. His government will fall if he accepts the Obama line. Yet,when Bibi reportedly equated building in East Jerusalem to building in Tel Aviv,Clinton unequivocally told the AIPAC that the status quo is no longer viable. Israel will remain a friend,but with a new qualifier: America will defend Israel within its 1967 borders,not beyond.
An introspective Netanyahu might note the cruel irony. It is his discredited predecessor Ehud Olmerts compromise roadmap that he needs,even if it sinks his government. Bibis hardline friends are not listening yet. But they are speeding towards the moment when somebody will have to break,somehow.
Irrespective of talks which never produce anything,the faultline within Israel will give way. In securing a Palestinian state,Ramallah may not initiate the process this time round. It might just be the symbolic tension between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. With 20 more homes sanctioned in East Jerusalem on Tuesday,Shas (which runs the interior ministry approving the constructions) has perhaps crossed the Green Line,and not just in the divided city.
sudeep.paul@expressindia.com
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