After Obama's candid address in Cairo, Israel's prime minister is gearing up to swamp hopes of peace in impossible conditions and demands, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem The right-wing Israeli government reacted to President Barack Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on 4 June with a strange combination of confusion, ambivalence and apprehension. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who had earlier rejected emphatic American demands for a total freeze of Jewish settlement expansion activities in the West Bank, remarked rather laconically that he shared Obama's vision for peace in the Middle East. His careful avoidance of comment on the reasserted "two-state solution" appeared aimed to forestall further deterioration in relations with the Obama administration. Other Israeli officials were not so discrete, making strident remarks lambasting Obama for "betraying Israel and the Jewish people" and for "pandering to the Arabs". Some ministers affiliated with the ruling coalition's religious parties resorted to ugly smears and canards against the US president, especially his "Muslim connections". One minister from the pro- settler party, the Jewish House, said that Israel was not "a lackey of the United States" and should pursue its interests independently, irrespective of Washington's desires. Another Israeli minister, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party, went as far as proposing a long list of "punitive sanctions" against the US, including selling Israeli-acquired American military technology to third parties hostile to the US, forging an alliance with Europe, inciting the American Jewish community against the Obama administration, and refraining from purchasing new American weapons. Nonetheless, it is clear that these voices are an expression of desperation as much as they are of defiance given the inherently lopsided relations between the US and Israel. This is not to say that Israel is succumbing to US pressure with regards to the settlements, the main pawn in the current standoff between Tel Aviv and Washington. Far from it, Netanyahu's own Likud Party colleagues and other coalition partners are making rabid efforts to keep settlement expansion going. For example, Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra- orthodox Shas Party, has instructed his ministry to come up with plans to help keep up construction in the settlements. One of the plans proposed is to expand the borders of Jerusalem as much as possible so that the construction of new settlements can take place in the few additional kilometres between East Jerusalem and the colony of Maali Adomim. Earlier this week, Israeli officials were visibly upset when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied the existence of any formal understandings between Israel and the former Bush administration allowing the continuation of building settler units inside the settlements. "There is no memorisation of any informal and oral agreements. If they did occur, which of course people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the US government," Clinton told reporters on Friday in a news conference with her Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, at the State Department in Washington. With his list of choices growing shorter, Netanyahu has been reticent to say how his government will deal with the "new reality" in Washington. However, pressure, internal and external, on him to deal with the "crisis with Washington" has been unrelenting as the US is beginning to expedite international momentum pushing towards the realisation of the two-state solution. Some Israeli political pundits have suggested that Netanyahu finds himself stuck in a situation where he has to choose between challenging and alienating Washington, which Israel can hardly afford to do giving its strategic dependence on the US, or infuriating his right-wing and extremist coalition partners, which could lead to the collapse of his four-month-old government. The Israeli premier is apparently trying to overcome this predicament by evasive tactics. Next week, Netanyahu will deliver "a major address" at the religious-oriented Bar Illan University near Tel Aviv in which he is expected to spell out his government's peace plan. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted well-informed sources as saying that Netanyahu is obliged to make the speech "due to his understanding of reality and knowing that he must present a political initiative". Aides to the Israeli premier have been quoted as saying that the main motive behind the speech is to "mend relations" with the Obama administration and alleviate "the pressure" being applied on Israel. Most observers here expect Netanyahu to endorse, tacitly and begrudgingly, the general concept of the two-state solution. However, to remain faithful to his "Land of Israel" ideology, and to keep his coalition government intact, at least for the foreseeable future, Netanyahu is likely to outlay a host of stiff conditions that would effectively eviscerate his acceptance of the two-state solution of all substance. These, according to one Israeli commentator, will include the following: no return to 1967 borders; no withdrawal from East Jerusalem; no return of Palestinian refugees uprooted from their homeland when Israel was created in 1948; and no dismantlement of Jewish colonies -- especially the large ones -- abutting the Green Line. Moreover, Netanyahu is likely to declare that Israel will insist that any Palestinian state or quasi-state must be demilitarised and that Israel would have to retain control of the prospective entity's borders, border- crossings, water resources, airspace, and telecommunication channels. Netanyahu is also likely to speak of "two states for two peoples," an allusion to Israeli demands that the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel be expelled to any future Palestinian state. In all events, Netanyahu will insist that the contemplated Palestinian state will be tightly controlled by Israel. Hence it is near certain that a state with such characteristics will be resolutely rejected, not only by the Palestinian people but also by the Arab world and much if not all of the international community. Netanyahu is, of course, well aware of these "peace breakers" which he hopes will get the various parties preoccupied in endless talks that will lead nowhere. This, many pundits suggest, is his ultimate aim. Meanwhile, Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel Monday to push for "immediate talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority". "The [US] president has told me to exert all efforts to create the circumstances whereby the parties can begin immediate discussions," said Mitchell. He added that the aim of the talks was "a comprehensive peace and normalisation of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours, which also would serve the security interests of the United States". Netanyahu hopes that in return for some "gestures" Israel is offering the Palestinians, such as allowing more food into the Gaza Strip and removing some roadblocks in the West Bank, Obama will turn a blind eye to a "minimised scope of building in the settlements". However, it is clear that Obama's credibility is hanging in the balance, especially after his speech in Cairo, and nothing would hurt this credibility like allowing Israel to keep building and expanding settlements, widely viewed as the ultimate death knell of hopes for real peace.
