Funny how the Israeli press is pretty sure that Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t lying when he says he would like to see Israel at peace with the Palestinians and surrounding nations, but the rest of the world media thinks he doesn’t mean it.
For instance, in an article titled “Netanyahu aide: No Golan pullout for peace,” the AP writes:
Like the contacts with Syria, talks between Israel and the Palestinians have also been frozen since Netanyahu came to power.
Under U.S. pressure, Netanyahu has accepted the idea of a Palestinian state, while attaching conditions the Palestinians reject.
(The fact that the article is not about the Palestinians is besides the point, but the AP never misses an opportunity to slam Israel.)
Aluf Benn, in Ha’aretz, the newspaper that is to Netanyahu as the New York Times is to George W. Bush:
On Sunday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the stage afforded by the cabinet meeting to make his most far-reaching statement to date: “We have achieved national consensus on the concept of two states for two peoples.”
[…] Politicians from his Likud party were not present at the Bar-Ilan speech, but at the government meeting they listened and kept mum, by consensus. Minister without Portfolio Benny Begin, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat – nary a one said a word against Netanyahu after the meeting.
Not only did Netanyahu adopt the slogan of that old lefty Uri Avnery, he also backed it up with measures on the ground, undertaken in cooperation with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Many roadblocks have been dismantled, and it is now easier and more convenient for Palestinians to travel around the West Bank. The security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has already surpassed the peaks of the Oslo days, according to senior Palestinian sources. Both sides have an interest in playing down this last point, each for its own political reasons, but it has to be said to Netanyahu’s credit that he is making good on promises made before the election.
And from the interview that AP is quoting, and that is only a Netanyahu aide speaking the truth:
Everyone with eyes to see, sees that there is a failure of Palestinian leadership. There is no Palestinian Sadat. There is no Palestinian Mandela. Abu Mazen is not vulgar like Arafat and not militant and extreme like Hamas. There could be worse than him. But even in him I do not discern the interest or the will to arrive at the end of the conflict with Israel. On the contrary, he is preserving eternal grievances against us and intensifying them.
The AP does not use this quote. Here is the watered-down version, and the response from Palestinians:
There “could be worse” leaders than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Arad said. “But even with him I don’t see a real interest and desire to arrive at the end of the conflict with Israel. On the contrary, he is preserving eternal claims against us and inflaming them,” he said.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called Arad’s remarks “inappropriate and unacceptable.”
“President Abbas is president of the Palestinian people and he is a full partner. And he’s waiting for an Israeli partner,” Erekat said.
Note once again that the Palestinians are turning around accusations that are utterly true about them, and trying to repackage them to be about Israel. Palestinians have been stealing the Israeli narrative for decades. Thus, the “Law of Return,” which allows anyone of Jewish heritage to emigrate to Israel and become a citizen, is warped into the “right of return,” in which all Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948, and all of their descendants, must be allowed to return to their original homes in Israel. Now the Palestinian meme is that there is no Israeli peace partner. Watch it start to be picked up by the anti-Israel bloggers, and ultimately by the news media, even as Netanyahu states clearly that he is willing to see a Palestinian state created—under certain conditions. The conditions that the Palestinians reject? A demilitarized state, recognize that Israel is a Jewish State, no settlement of Palestinian refugees in Israel, no division of Jerusalem, and a trade-off of territory incorporating large Jewish population blocs built inside the 1949 Armistice lines (that the world likes to call the 1967 borders).
The onus here is not on the Israelis to accept Palestinian statehood. That has been done. The onus is on the Palestinians to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish State in the land of her ancestors. That has never been done. And yet, the media refuse to hold the Palestinians up to the same strict standard they hold Israelis. Before Netanyahu, the demon was Ariel Sharon. During the Olmert years, the demon was the Israeli right. Or the “settlers.” But never, in the years since I started interpreting the media bias about Israel, have the media ever blamed the Palestinians for their terrorism, rejectionism, and refusal to compromise.
I believe if the situations were reversed, and it was the state of Palestine versus the Jewish Liberation Army, we’d be hearing how the terrorists must be confronted, must never be dealt with, and must accept the situation of having lost the war. We’d be told that Jewish refugees had to settle where they were and make lives for themselves and forget about ever returning to their homeland. But then, I already know what the world thinks of Jews.
