Hemmed in from all sides

IT WAS a case of the morning after the morning after.

Benjamin Netanyahu woke on November 9 to discover that, after two icy terms opposite Barack Obama and a sometimes-fraught relationship with Bill Clinton, he would finally reach the promised land and get to work with a Republican president. And things got even better as Donald Trump made a series of hard-line nominations for his key national security and foreign policy posts, and to boot designated David Friedman, an Orthodox Jew and staunch supporter of the settlements who has advocated for moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem, as his ambassador to Israel.

But no sooner did the prime minister awake from his euphoria, then on December 23 the nightmare scenario that some had predicted for the presidential interregnum began to materialize. Barack Obama’s United Nations Ambassador Samantha Powers abstained on a Security Council resolution that defined all settlements over the 1967 lines, including in east Jerusalem, where Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, is located, as “a flagrant violation under international law.”

Years of veiled animosity and rancor quickly dissipated into outright hostility as the Obama-Netanyahu relationship momentarily went into full-scale meltdown.

The US has “not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN, it has colluded with it behind the scenes,” an enraged Netanyahu said. He then launched a furious counteroffensive, enacting sanctions against New Zealand and Senegal, two of the four nations that had tabled Resolution 2334 (Israel does not have ties with Venezuela and Malaysia) and, in an almost unprecedented step, summoned the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, on Christmas Day, for an official protest.

The US counter-response was a few days in coming. On December 28, Secretary of State John Kerry in an hour-and-ten-minute speech offered a passionate defense of the US decision to abstain and went on the offensive, accusing Netanyahu of double speak. The prime minister while publicly stating his support for a two-state solution, Kerry said, leads the furthest right-wing coalition in Israel’s history “with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements.”

More importantly though, Kerry also laid out six ‘principles’ on borders, refugees, security, two states, Jerusalem and end of conflict that he said would provide a basis for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

But Netanyahu fears the worst is not yet over. A peace conference is scheduled to take place in Paris on January 15, with the participation of some 70 nations. Netanyahu declined an invitation to meet with Abbas after the conference reiterating his position that negotiations with the Palestinians will only take place on a direct face-to-face basis.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, speaking at a meeting of his Yisrael Beytenu faction, described the Paris conference as no less than a modern Dreyfus trial, referring to the notorious 19th century court-martial of a French-Jewish army captain falsely convicted of spying for Germany that is said to have inspired Theodor Herzl’s conversion to Zionism.

The Netanyahu government fears the Paris Conference will deepen the internationalization of the peace process and with the Kerry parameters could even be used as the basis for a further Security Council resolution before Trump takes office, or that participant countries who have yet to recognize Palestine as a state could use the conference as an opportunity to do so. France has already said in the past that it could recognize Palestine if attempts to renew the peace process fail, a move that may lead other European Union states to follow suit.

Sources close to the prime minister have said that Resolution 2334 and the Kerry principles have shifted the posts on Israeli- Palestinian negotiations.

Dore Gold, until recently the director general of the Foreign Ministry and currently president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, explains to the The Jerusalem Report that Resolution 2334 simply hardens UN positions on how to solve the conflict, in particular by setting the pre-1967 lines as the basis for a negotiated settlement.

“If you go back to Resolution 242, it talked about a withdrawal from territories and not from all the territories,” says Gold, “but the current resolution uses much harder language on the withdrawal issue.”

GOLD ALSO notes a clause in the resolution calling for measures to distinguish “between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967,” which he describes as a “green light” to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

If the resolution was conceived of as facilitating future diplomacy, says Gold, it was completely off the mark. “What it actually does,” he says, “is to throw a wrench into the wheels of the peace process, because it demonstrates that should the Palestinians have disagreements with Israel on any of the six permanent-status issues, such as borders and Jerusalem, they could just replicate the process of 2334 and go to the UN to try and resolve the dispute instead of compromising.”

But if 2334 put Israel on the ropes, Kerry’s speech from Israel’s perspective was below the belt. “We do not need to be lectured about peace by foreign leaders,” Netanyahu said in a pointed rebuke.

Washington Institute fellow David Makovsky explains that on a number of points the Kerry speech contains important differences to positions put forward by previous administrations, in particular the parameters laid out by President Bill Clinton in December 2000 shortly before he left office.

On Jerusalem, writes Makovsky, Kerry called for the city to be an “internationally recognized capital for the two states,” marking the first time the US has publicly called for a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem.

On borders, Kerry spoke of territorial exchanges to be conducted on a one-to-one ratio via “mutually agreed equivalent swaps,” language that falls short of the Palestinian demand for equal swaps, but strays from the Clinton Parameters, which indicated that swaps would not be calculated from a 100 percent baseline and is way off base from the Bush letter that accepted Israel incorporating the settlement blocs. On refugees, Kerry, while saying any solution would have to be consistent with the idea of two states for two peoples and could not affect the fundamental character of Israel as a Jewish state, failed to use language that was restrictive enough for Israel.

MEANWHILE ON the prime minister’s right flank, calls are being made for Israel to take the initiative in response to international pressure and annex a swath of the West Bank. Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett is pushing a “Ma’aleh Adumim First” initiative that would see the town of 40,000 in the contentious E-1 corridor outside of Jerusalem annexed as a first step toward applying Israeli law and ending military rule over Area C, the 60 percent chunk of the West Bank under Israeli military and civil control. Sources close to Bennett said he was attempting to pressure the prime minister to seize “a window of opportunity that will remain open for just a few weeks” when Trump takes office.

As Israel moves into a year heavily weighted with symbolism – 50 years to the Six Day War and 100 years to the Balfour Declaration – what then can it do come January 20?

Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Military Intelligence, who now heads the Institute for National Security Studies, says Israel should put aside its feelings of anger, insult, betrayal, and rage and adopt a proactive strategy that is based on understandings with the United States.

Israel, he says, should present a proposal to the Trump administration for an initiative that involves practical actions to improve the situation on the ground. Among the steps he proposes are differentiating between settlement blocs and isolated outposts; construction in the latter areas, he suggests, should be frozen. Furthermore, he adds, Israel should prove its commitment to the future viability of two states by taking steps that encourage the construction of functional Palestinian institutions, the expansion of Palestinian self-governance, and the free movement and growth of a stable Palestinian economic system as a foundation for a Palestinian state, once the conditions for its establishment materialize.

The question is, will Netanyahu rein in his right flank and heed that advice.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, suggests Israel will be looking not just to rectify the damage done by the UN resolution, the Kerry speech and any other potential moves that could be made before the new administration comes into office, but also to work with it to devise a strategy to combat anti-Israel measures at the world body.

“We are very disappointed that the US administration even allowed such a resolution to pass, especially when you look at the issue of Jerusalem and holy sites,” Danon tells The Report. We are looking forward to correcting this. It won’t be easy but I believe the new administration will return to US policy that calls for direct negotiations and not a policy that encourages the Palestinians to come to the UN or other international bodies in order to achieve empty victories, declarations and speeches, but rather to go back to direct negotiations.”

AS FOR the UN, he says, “countries like the US should demand more transparency and make sure that their funds are being used to support the real goals of the UN, and not for inciting hatred. I think now is the right time for change at the UN with a new secretary general and a new president in the White House.”

But as Netanyahu plays rope-a-dope and waits for Trump to take office, he was called in for questioning by police in early January over alleged suspicions that he received gifts from wealthy businessmen. A few days later police revealed they had obtained a recording of him attempting to negotiate a deal with his arch-foe Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes to provide favorable coverage of the prime minister in exchange for limiting circulation of Yedioth ’s biggest rival, the pro-Netanyahu freebie Israel Hayom.

The revelations sparked calls from the opposition for the prime minister’s resignation and the question now is will Netanyahu reach his promised land?

Benjamin Netanyahu’s nightmare scenario of a US-backed international diplomatic initiative against Israel has come true – and now the prime minister is facing serious allegations of corruption.