This is the sixth excerpt exclusive to WND from WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi's new book "Why Israel Can't Wait: The Coming War Between Israel and Iran," available from WND Books.
In responding to President Obama's Cairo speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced several hurdles. His administration had been reluctant to embrace a two-state solution largely because Hamas controls Gaza, effectively negating the ability of the Palestinian Authority to be an effective governmental voice for all Palestinians. Moreover, the increasing pressure of the Obama administration on Israel constituted a threat to the very survival of Netanyahu's government.
On Sunday night, June 14, 2009, two days after the presidential election in Iran, Netanyahu spoke in Hebrew to a nationally televised audience.
Even the setting of Netanyahu's speech to the nation emphasized the movement of his Likud-led governing coalition to the political right. Bar-Ilan University is Israel's second largest university. Dedicated to combining Torah studies with general studies, Bar-Ilan is the university attended by Yigal Amir, the extremist Orthodox Jewish student who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Yet, at Bar-Ilan University, Netanyahu chose to speak from the Begin-Sadat Center. At the beginning of his speech, Netanyahu commented on this, saying: "We are gathered this evening in an institution named for two pioneers of peace, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and we share their vision."
The comment called to mind the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty then–Prime Minister Begin signed with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
In that spirit, Netanyahu said, "I turn to all Arab leaders tonight and I say: Let us meet. Let us speak of peace and let us make peace. I am ready to meet with you at any time. I am willing to meet in Damascus, in Riyadh, in Beirut, anywhere – including Jerusalem."
He continued, stressing that he was calling on the Arab countries "to cooperate with the Palestinians and with us to advance an economic peace." Acknowledging that economic peace is not a substitute for political peace, Netanyahu suggested a wide scale of projects for cooperative development, including water desalination, developing solar energy, and laying gas and petroleum lines to link Asia, Africa and Europe. To the Palestinians, he said, "Let us begin negotiations immediately without preconditions."
Netanyahu took strong exception with the contention that territory was at the heart of the conflict with the Palestinians.
"We tried withdrawal with an agreement and withdrawal without an agreement," he said. "We tried a partial withdrawal and a full withdrawal. In 2000 and again last year, Israel proposed an almost total withdrawal in exchange for an end to the conflict, and twice our offers were rejected."
Noting that Israel withdrew from Gaza, uprooted over 20 settlements and evicted thousands of Israelis from their homes, Netanyahu pointed out that in response, Israel "received a hail of missiles on our cities, towns and children."
"Territorial withdrawals have not lessened the hatred," he concluded. "And to our regret, even Palestinian moderates are not yet ready to say the simple words: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and it will stay that way."
Instead, Netanyahu insisted that "a fundamental prerequisite" for ending the conflict and creating a Palestinian state would be a "binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people." Nor was Netanyahu willing to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem by opening Israel to settlement within its borders by Palestinians claiming a right to return.
While Netanyahu did not reject a two-state solution, he insisted a two-state solution could only be created on these two key conditions.
He also addressed the issue of the Holocaust, noting, "The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not derive from the cascade of catastrophes that befell our people." Moreover, Netanyahu extended these catastrophes beyond the Holocaust to include a 2,000-year history in which "the Jewish people suffered expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, and massacres which culminated in the Holocaust, a chain of suffering which has no parallel in history."
Then, addressing the Holocaust directly, Netanyahu insisted, "There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the state of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the state of Israel would have been established earlier, it is the Holocaust that would not have occurred." From this, Netanyahu postulated that "the tragic history of powerlessness of our people explains why the Jewish people need a sovereign right of self-defense." That right of self-defense Netanyahu demanded was "here, in the land of Israel," the homeland of the Jewish people. "This is where our identity was forged."
With this, Netanyahu left no doubt that resettling Israel in Europe, as Iran's President Ahmadinejad had often suggested, was an unacceptable solution. Without ever mentioning President Obama's comments on the Holocaust in his Cairo speech or the visit to Buchenwald, Netanyahu skillfully repositioned the issue of the Holocaust to leave no doubt that the justification for the Jewish state of Israel did not depend on the atrocities the Nazis committed on European Jews during World War II.
Regarding the creation of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu was specific, presenting his view in terms the White House could not easily dismiss: "In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples will live freely, side-by-side, as good neighbors with mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other."
Still, Netanyahu said he had two conditions: (1) the Palestinians must "clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people"; and (2) the territory under Palestinian control "must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel." What Netanyahu said he did not want to see happen was the creation of a Palestinian state "that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza."
The following sentence summarized his position: "If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel's security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state."
Regarding settlements, Netanyahu pledged Israel would not build new settlements or expropriate additional land for existing settlements. Yet, Netanyahu would continue natural-growth development in existing settlements, arguing "there is a need to enable the residents to lead normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children like families elsewhere."
Reactions to Bar-Ilan speech
On behalf of the president, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs almost immediately issued a statement saying President Obama "welcomes the important step forward in Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech." The statement emphasized that President Obama "is committed to two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples."
Read closely, the White House statement appeared an implicit acknowledgment of the validity of Netanyahu's argument that the Jewish people had a historic claim on Israel. Moreover, the White House statement implied the Palestinians would have to accept Israel as a Jewish state destined to remain in the Holy Land. The White House showed the first signs of letting Israel up easy, after the hardball negotiations of Special Envoy Mitchell and the uncompromising statements of Secretary of State Clinton.
Palestinian reaction was also immediate: Mustafa Barghouthi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, the secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative and former candidate for Palestinian president, said the following: "Netanyahu is attempting to mislead the world community by substituting a ghetto for a Palestinian state. He is no partner for peace. His whole speech was nothing but the consolidation of apartheid, not only in the territories but within Israel. Also, he preempted any possibility for negotiations because while he's calling for no preconditions, he is simultaneously saying all of Jerusalem is Israel's capital, there will be no freeze of settlements, and the refugees cannot come home. He's clearly deciding the most important issues while claiming he's open to negotiations."
In Israel, Netanyahu's speech was received favorably, relieving his governing coalition from any immediate internal pressures that might cause the coalition to falter.
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, reporter and columnist Caroline Glick called the speech "a positive contribution to the general discourse on the Middle East and Israel's place in it."
Glick doubted the speech would have any major impact on the pre-determined course the White House had decided to pursue with Israel. Still, she noted that Netanyahu's willingness to accept a two-state solution was designed "to decrease U.S. pressure on his government by conditionally accepting the idea of a Palestinian state."
Moreover, Glick felt Netanyahu had demonstrated "that through their consistent rejection of Israel's right to exist as the Jewish state, the Palestinians – not us – are the side responsible for the absence of Middle East peace."
Finally, Glick felt Netanyahu had succeeded in changing Israel's internal dialogue from the tone of the previous Olmert government that had consistently spoken of the willingness of the Israeli people "to make painful concessions for peace, and treated the establishment of a Jew-free Palestinian state as their primary duty as Zionists." Instead, Glick argued, "Netanyahu recast the national consensus along patriotic lines."
Regarding natural-growth development in existing settlements, there would still need to be more diplomatic discussion before an effective compromise could be reached. Yet, after Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University, it was hard to imagine the White House could push unilaterally for the creation of Palestinian state, without taking into consideration more seriously Israel's legitimate national-security concerns.
In the final analysis, Netanyahu made it more difficult for the White House to impose on Israel a two-state solution in which Hamas refuses to accept explicitly the existence and survival of Israel as a Jewish state.