Jerusalem – Benjamin Netanyahu’s allies acknowledged on Sunday that his election-eve disavowal of a Palestinian state had caused a rift with the White House, but blamed U.S. President Barack Obama’s unprecedented criticism on a misunderstanding.
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The Israeli prime minister pledged on the eve of his re-election victory last week that there would never be a Palestinian state while he is prime minister.
The remarks were widely interpreted as a rejection of the “two-state solution” that has been the basis of decades of talks to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, brokered by successive U.S. Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
Since winning re-election, Netanyahu has tried to row back, arguing that he was not rejecting Palestinian statehood in principle, but responding to a reality in which the Palestinian Authority has a political pact with the Islamist group Hamas, under which statehood would be unacceptable.
But Obama said on Friday Netanyahu’s comments had made it “hard to find a path” back to serious peace negotiations. He told Netanyahu on Thursday that Washington would have to “reassess” its policies in the Middle East.
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, a close Netanyahu ally, acknowledged the problem but pointed the finger at Washington for failing to understand the prime minister’s position.
“If the Americans are finding it difficult to understand or accept our clarifications (on Palestinian statehood), this is certainly worrying and requires tending to,” he told Israel Radio. “He (Netanyahu) didn’t say this (statehood) is ‘unacceptable’. He said reality has changed.”
Israel’s close alliance with the United States has been a fundamental pillar of its security throughout its 67 year history, and Netanyahu’s political foes have accused him of jeopardizing it.
PAYING A PRICE
Netanyahu has long had a difficult relationship with Obama, and made it worse two weeks before the election by addressing the U.S. Congress at the invitation of opposition Republicans to condemn the administration’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence aligned with the center-left Zionist Union which lost the vote to Netanyahu, said Israel would “pay a price” for Netanyahu’s remarks on statehood, which had caused “fury” in Washington.
“I’m not among those who panic: I don’t think the United States will impose sanctions on Israel. But I see places in which it will go much harder for us,” said Yadlin, who returned a day earlier from a visit to the U.S. capital. “Firstly, they used a word that they haven’t used since 1975 – ‘reassessment’, a reassessment of relations.”
President Reuven Rivlin began the formal process on Sunday of consulting political parties to nominate a candidate to form a governing coalition, largely a foregone conclusion after Netanyahu’s victory.
Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, is likely to be given the nod as early as Wednesday to start what could be up to 42 days of negotiations with potential cabinet partners. He is expected to build a coalition with far-right, religious and centrist parties, on course to becoming Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
His comments on a Palestinian state were part of a hard rightward tack that helped deliver the election victory after polls predicted he would lose to the center-left Zionist Union.
Obama also took Netanyahu to task for an Internet post on the day of the election in which the prime minister urged right-wing supporters to vote because Arab Israelis were doing so in large numbers.
Netanyahu publicly embraced an independent state for Palestinians in a speech in 2009, but Palestinians have long questioned his sincerity, noting his expansion of Israeli settlements on occupied land. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Netanyahu’s latest comments “very worrying”.
With no peace talks under way, the Palestinians have taken steps to seek international recognition of their independence unilaterally. So far most Western countries have held back from diplomatic recognition, arguing that a Palestinian state should emerge from negotiations with Israel.
Washington has long used its veto in the U.N. Security Council to prevent the United Nations from taking steps to recognizes Palestinian independence. Some in Israel are concerned that Obama’s “reassessment” could jeopardizes that stance.
Silvan Shalom, a Likud cabinet minister, said Israel would have little incentive to seek a peace deal if the United States and other countries “lend a hand” to unilateral Palestinian moves. If that happens, he told Army Radio, “then what is the point of signing another (peace) accord?”
Obama needs medication for his anger and needs to take temper management classes.
America will also use “reconsider” the approval rating of Obama and vote Republican next election.
Obama is not only hurting himself, but his entire party for next election.
Obama is showing open anti antisemitism and it is scary how he is so far getting away from it. May we see Moshiach very soon.
Well…. Mr. Netanyahu, you poked the President of US in the eye, now it’s his turn, lets see who needs whom? the US does NOT need isreal to defend itself, isreal can’t defend itself without US help.
president behaima will soon be gone forever and noone will care about him except the democrats,so if you vote the democrats out of office together with Hillary and her cohorts,then this issue will go away back under the rock it crawled out from.
This is what happens when you make a muslim president and who was looking for any excuse to teach Israel a lesson,so that it will never be heard from again.
Where are our democartic jewish leaders from congress?are they all afarid to speak out?they too should be thrown out,including chucky,nadler et all!!!
A name can tell you a lot about a person. . . Specifically, , , it should be obvious where President Obama’s sympathies are. If his name had been Yankel Shmerel Obama, he would probably care at least a little bit about Israel. But Barak Hussein Obama?
Our esteemed president has to tell the palestinians that they have to shape up and stop playing games about recognizing israel as the jewish homeland..They have to agree to a non belligerent state next to israel, who lets them have electricity and water.
Obama’s inability to understand is clearly his desire to not understand. he is grabbing at an opportunity to justify his mission to sever the alliance with Israel. As a commenter wrote on another thread, Obama is little more than an “office terrorist”, whose hate for Israel and Jews has permeated his administration and its Middle East policy.
I don’t know what is there to misunderstand? he clearly said that a palesteinian country would not happen under his watch.
You can’t say one thing to one audience, and than another thing, to another audience. and answer all the discrepancies as a misunderstanding.
Obama is a Jew hater as everyone knew since before the election when we were told about his “rebbe” the good Reverend Wright, a self avowed anti Semite who frequently sermonized against Jews.
His first act as president was to travel to the middle east, where he bypassed Israel and apologized to all the Arab countries fire America’s treatment.
It is a mystery beyond words that Jews, and particularly frum Jews, and readers of this site could continue to allow in there mistake and support this wicked anti Semite.
You didn’t need to hear Netanyahu twice to understand that he said before the election there would never be a Palestinian state as long as they continued their terrorism. Obama chooses to ignore that qualification
Heaven help this country if our own people support this y”sh Hitler in sheep’s clothing
He is destined to join the ranks of Jimmy Carter as the most rabid anti Semitic x-president, destined to cause us tzaros a long as he lives