Finally after great pressure from Washington Benjamin Netanyahu today in carefully measured words agreed to a two-state solution. Toward the end of his speech he said:
We would be prepared to work towards a real peace agreement to establish an independent state living alongside Israel.
But he hastened to place a few conditions on his offer. The offer only applied, he said, if the Palestinians were first willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. AND he added it only applied if the Palestinian state were to be completely demilitarised.
Now like Alice in Wonderland we can define words anyway we please. But outside of wonderland, one of the minimum requirements of a sovereign state is that it has the right to defend itself, and that includes the right to maintain the means and personnel to defend itself. This kind of state Netanyahu does not offer the Palestinians. Perhaps he thinks they do not deserve it. Perhaps he thinks they are inferior beings to Israelis, and that the Israelis have a good track record so the Palestinians can trust them to defend them.
Netanyahu’s determination to have the Palestinians accept Israel as a "Jewish state" must in itself be a bitter pill since 20% of Israel’s current citizens are Arabs, not Jews. To ask the Palestinians to affirm Israel as a Jewish state is to ask them to condone a further "cleansing" of Arabs from Israeli citizenry.
At any rate that’s the best Netanyahu could do in response to President Obama’s vision of real peace in the Middle East. Netanyahu says, okay, okay, I will say the words. I agree to a "two state solution" as long the Palestinians don’t get a real state, and as long as they agree that the 20% of Israeli citzens today who are Arabs are not really part of Israel, and as long as they agree that Israel gets Jerusalem and that the refugee problem will have to be solved by somebody else.
Does anyone besides me have the feeling the Netanyahu has today raised his middle finger not only to the Palestinians but to President Obama and to all those Israelis and Americans who have for so longer dreamed of a just and lasting settlement of the most protracted conflict on the planet?