IMRA..
Weekly Commentary..
02 February '12..
Let there be no mistake about it.
The Likud Primary voted held this week was not a policy referendum for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
And by “policy referendum” I am referring specifically to his “two state solution” Bar Ilan address and related policy remarks since then.
Years ago, during the Sharon administration, at Mr. Netanyahu’s initiative, the Likud party Central Committee passed a resolution opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.
This was the last time the issue was raised in a Likud forum for consideration.
When Binyamin Netanyahu ran for election heading the Likud, the official Likud party website prominently featured a very straightforward box spelling out what a vote for the Likud represented in contrast to a vote for Kadima.
And it stated that a vote for Likud is a vote “against a Palestinian state”.
No wiggle room there.
Does Mr. Netanyahu have some kind of mandate to engage in a “fan dance”* before the world in which he utters the phrase “two states” to keep the world at bay – confident that the state will never actually come into existence?
Perhaps.
But at most it is to do the “fan dance” – not to actually go through with it.
And what of the “fan dance”?
Doesn’t it confuse the public and our friends overseas, shifting them over to supporting a Palestinian state?
Are these publics sophisticated enough to appreciate that it is either a “fan dance” or that the conditions Israel includes in the “dance” are necessary – conditions that thanks to the Palestinian hardline stands make the possibility of a deal impossible?
Is the international situation such that it justifies the “fan dance” ?
Very complicated questions.
Especially when there are officials and staff who aren’t sure if this is indeed a “fan dance”.
Bottom line: if an additional ballot box had been added for a referendum on Mr. Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan address there would have been an overwhelming vote against it.
*Fan Dance - ...Performers often evoke illusions of: having already seen what had never been exposed, not being able to shift one's gaze fast enough to see what seems surely to be presently exposed, or being aware of currently "seeing" what in fact is not exposed to be seen. Wikipedia
Link:http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=55573
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As if all this even matters. The Palestinians are not going to settle peacefully with Israel under any circumstances. It does not matter what Israel offers or which Israeli leader offers it, although perhaps if Israel offered to commit national suicide the Palestinians might just go for it. But even that is unlikely, the Palestinians really want to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jewish People themselves, not have the Israelis do it for them.
ReplyDeleteThis is where people like Dr. Lerner come up short, they still think that the Palestinians can be lured, coaxed, tricked, or manipulated somehow into making peace with Israel.
Well, they can't.