Likud wants its West Bank settlements: that was the message that Israel’s ruling party sent to their leader Benjamin Netanyahu when its central committee voted last week to resume settlement construction in September. Now, only the most wild-eyed optimist can hope for a breakthrough in the peace process.
The Palestinians rightly have linked a new round of direct peace talks with a halt in settlement construction. While the central committee’s decision is not binding on Mr Netanyahu, there is little reason to believe that he will not adhere to it. Angering his support base within the settler movement would probably end his premiership, his government and most probably, his political career. Mr Netanyahu has not given any indication that he is willing put national interests above personal and partisan ones.
There is more at play in the Likud response than idealism. Under heavy criticism from the opposition, the party, which has been in power for a year and a half, is retrenching among its core supporters. His defence minister, the Labour party leader Ehud Barak, is warning that the international outcry from the flotilla attack will only intensify if Israel does not make peace progress. The opposition Kadima is claiming that Mr Netanyahu’s government is destroying Israel’s rapport with the West. They smell blood, and are trying to score points with the Israeli public.
Even the foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has capitalised on Mr Netanyahu’s apparent weakness. He has called for the creation of a “peace blueprint”, which involves stripping Palestinians of their citizenship and sending them to the West Bank.
There is little actual peace, of course, in this blueprint for ethnic cleansing, but the far-right Mr Lieberman cares more about the spotlight than long-term stability and, dare we say, justice. After months of being treated as a bad joke by the Netanyahu government, he is resurrecting a popular campaign promise and pandering to Israeli rejectionists of all political stripes, hoping to regain the limelight.
There is little hope for peace when even the calls from within Israel for peace are little more than partisan politics. Even Israel’s elder statesman, Shimon Peres, has little productive to say on the issue. He has asked world leaders to engage with Hamas in order to make the organisation change its ways. The Nobel peace laureate, who won international accolades for signing the Oslo Accords, claims that Israel is not the problem, its enemies are. “Don’t press upon us. They are pressing the [wrong] people foolishly,” he said to the Washington Post.
This advice should be rejected. The world, and particularly the US, must continue to push Israel. Only outside pressure will keep Israel’s right-leaning government from spinning off once again into “Greater Israel” fantasies. But until Israelis and their leaders realise that peace requires painful but necessary concessions, peace will remain little more than a distant hope.
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