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World Jewish News
Netanyahu's ministers contradicting his moderate message
11.08.2009
U.S. President Barack Obama could be forgiven for feeling confused over recent statements by Israeli cabinet ministers. Even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is negotiating with Washington over a temporary freeze on settlement construction and declaring his readiness to negotiate on establishing a Palestinian state, the rest of his cabinet seems to have taken a sharp turn rightward.
Netanyahu himself has been careful to remain at the center of the political consensus. Yesterday, for instance, he went to Amatzia and Shomria, in the Negev, to meet with settlers evacuated from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. But while he condemned the disengagement as a failure, he did not echo the settlers' complaints about giving up parts of the Land of Israel. He confined his criticism to the security realm, such as the daily rocket barrages that followed the pullout.
He also spoke of the Jewish history at Tel Lachish and Tel Gezer - both of which are within the Green Line. "Go up to those ruins," he urged the settlers. "This is the Land of Israel." But he made no mention of ancient Jewish sites in the West Bank.
Yet while Netanyahu was weighing his words down south, his ministers appeared to be firing in all directions.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) met yesterday with 29 visiting congressmen from Obama's Democratic Party and told them the president's goal of presenting his own peace plan in the coming weeks was unrealistic. Any overly ambitious goal, such as trying to force an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by a predetermined date, will end in failure and even violence, he warned. The president should focus on interim steps, not deliver ultimatums.
Lieberman termed the whole idea of a Palestinian state "public relations spin" that stems from a lack of understanding. Israeli policy, he said, "must be based on reality, not illusions." Israel must continue talking with the Palestinians and improve their economic and security situation, but "that is the maximum that can be achieved in the coming years."
And unlike Netanyahu, who has carefully refrained from commenting on last week's Fatah convention, Lieberman declared that the platform Fatah unveiled there "buries any chance" of a final-status agreement with the Palestinians in the coming years. Fatah's "extremist, uncompromising" positions on Jerusalem, the refugees and the settlement blocs create an unbridgeable gap between the minimum it will accept and the maximum Israel is prepared to give, he said.
But Lieberman was not the only one to contradict Netanyahu's moderate messages yesterday: Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) visited the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim and publicly urged the government to finally build the controversial E-1 neighborhood, which would link Ma'aleh Adumim with Jerusalem. Plans for this neighborhood have existed for years, but due to vehement opposition by successive American governments, construction has never begun.
Yishai said Israel should make every effort to convince the U.S. to allow construction in E-1. However, he continued, "there is no doubt that the new American administration is different from its predecessor," and "if there is no other choice, Israel must build in all the settlement blocs, and in E-1, on the basis of previous American commitments."
"Israel will do what it believes [is right]," he added. "This is an existential, essential, national and security need."
Rivlin added: "There is no Jerusalem without Ma'aleh Adumim; they are a single unit. If we don't build here, the Palestinians will build, and if they build, they will cut Jerusalem off from Ma'aleh Adumim, leaving Ma'aleh Adumim isolated, as Mount Scopus was from 1948 to 1967."
Since Rivlin is a senior member of Netanyahu's party, while Lieberman and Yishai head two of his three main coalition partners, the three of them together constitute a significant internal opposition.
In contrast, Defense Minister Ehud Barak - who heads the third major coalition partner, Labor - said yesterday that despite the "problematic" rhetoric at Fatah's convention, "that does not mean we don't need to move forward on the Obama plan for a comprehensive regional agreement."
By Barak Ravid and Nir Hasson
Источник: Haaretz
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