Abdel-Moneim Said* argues a more nuanced Arab response is needed to Netanyahu's speech outlining his position towards the peace process if pressure is to be maintained on the Israeli government US President Barack Obama's speech from Cairo University -- indeed, his entire visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- triggered a host of repercussions. Perhaps the most salient is that it compelled the Israeli government to declare its position, which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did in his speech at the Begin- Sadat Institute in Bar-Ilan University. The Netanyahu speech, in turn, triggered two general responses. Whereas the US and the EU welcomed the speech the Arabs rejected it, with some Arab media insisting it had effectively sounded a death knell over the negotiating process, leaving the Arabs no alternative but to return to armed resistance. The single most important Israeli gain from the speech was the wedge it drove between the US-EU and the Arab response. This was, no doubt, one of Netanyahu's aims. Since the Obama administration came into power Washington's attitude towards the Arab- Israeli conflict has steadily moved closer to that of Europe. Washington feels more strongly than ever that the conflict has gone on far too long and that its persistence increasingly imperils Western interests, fuelling the radicalisation of the Middle East and the growth of terrorism, encouraging the race acquire weapons of mass destruction and, more generally, holding the resources and markets of the region hostage to the fluctuations of the conflict. Washington began to turn up the pressure on Netanyahu to freeze settlement activity and agree to a two-state solution. When European countries, Russia, China, India and other powers, large and small, began to echo the call, the newly elected ultra-right Netanyahu government began to fear a resurgence of the type of international isolation it thought had been consigned to the past with the rise of Islamist extremism. Having correctly gauged the global temperature, Netanyahu, like all clever politicians, chose not to openly buck the tide. Instead, he hit upon a formula that sounded conciliatory but, in fact, was calculated to dismantle any Arab- Western-global consensus, minimise Israeli losses and buy time. It is also likely Netanyahu was betting his formula would precipitate a familiar Arab spiral of rejection and anger which in turn would work to deflect attention from, and ease the pressures on, his government. Netanyahu's speech was designed to send out mixed signals. On the one hand, he nodded in the direction of global opinion, admitting to the need for the creation of a Palestinian state. It was a position also intended to cater to the Labour Party, one of his partners in government, as well as the 61 per cent of the Israeli public who support the creation of an independent Palestinian state (versus the 23 per cent that reject such a state on principle). On the other hand, he refused to call a complete halt to settlement, insisting upon the "right" to continue construction to meet the needs of "natural growth", which has always been Israeli code for settlement expansion. He then added a long list of demands and conditions regarding the shape and powers of a prospective Palestinian state, topping them off with the insistence on a unified Jerusalem and the need for the Palestinians to recognise, in advance, the Jewish character of Israel. The speech was pitched so the US and Europe could pick up on the acknowledgement of the two-state solution, it was tactically useful domestically, and it was a negotiating position that, Netanyahu said, marked a beginning not an end. It might be useful, here, to recall Menachem Begin's positions regarding Israeli settlements, airports and land in the Sinai and then to recall that the Sinai was subsequently returned in full to Egypt. It is also useful to bear in mind that many Third World countries, upon reaching independence, started under conditions of less than full sovereignty which was eventually acquired as circumstances changed. Those countries that welcomed the speech were taken aback by the hasty Arab reaction which appeared to suppose Netanyahu had said this is where the process stops, with no prospect for a Palestinian state and no horizon for a freeze on settlements. Arab governments, political movements and the media shrugged off the Israeli change with regard to a Palestinian state almost as one, pointing out that the concept of the state Netanyahu had proposed was devoid of any political or economic viability. Instead they homed in on the settlement issue, and Netanyahu's demand for recognition of the Jewish character of the Israeli state, which they saw as a prelude to the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. In short, they dismissed the prime minister's acknowledgement of the need for a Palestinian state as a ruse aimed at impressing Western countries with a show of diplomatic "magnanimity" when the real thrust of Israeli strategy is to press ahead with settlement expansion and to force the question of the Jewishness of the state in order to effectively forestall the resumption of negotiations. There is some validity to this position. After all, how a state defines itself is really its own concern. There is a "cross" that often flashes in the European media. We have an Islamic Republic of Iran and other countries that are "Islamic". But never in the history of international relations has a state demanded others recognise its definition of itself above and beyond the recognition of its right to exist. That Western and Arab states should have taken antithetic views over what is tactical and what is strategic in Netanyahu's speech is precisely what he was aiming for. What seems clear to me is that the Arabs must focus more clearly on their own tactics and strategies, including how the US and Europe fits into them. Above all, we should not give Netanyahu leeway to play one side against the other in order to create a breach in the wall that has been closing in on him since he came to power. By no means is this meant to suggest we agree to his terms. Rather, the point is that we must engage with him as though his speech were no more than a negotiating position staked out by a Likudist hardliner whom we must coax step-by-step into being reasonable, as the Egyptians did with Begin before and after Camp David and, later, during the arbitrations on Taba. It follows that we must take Netanyahu at his word and, rather than treating his speech as a final position, look at it as a springboard for attaining the Arabs' strategic goal, the creation of an independent Palestinian state, free of Zionist settlements, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Anything that conflicts with this aim, such as settlements in the middle of a state that must be territorial contiguous, or the demand to officially recognise how the Israeli state defines itself, we should disregard for the time being, though with regard to the latter issue it is vital to insist that Israel guarantee Arab citizens within its borders their full citizenship rights in order to allay the spectre of a mass "transfer" or any other such crime against humanity. Such a strategic handling of the Netanyahu speech is far removed from blanket rejection, which serves only to hand Europe and Washington to Israel on a silver platter. It would give advocates of the Palestinian right to statehood much needed impetus to defend the right with greater efficacy, foregrounding the concrete issue of illegal Jewish settlements and contextualising the issue of the recognition of the Jewishness of the Israeli state as a potential human rights threat of the first order. Through such a rational strategy of engagement we can build momentum to support the Palestinian cause. Above all, we must remain on guard against behaving in the way Netanyahu is banking on. * The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
