This is a guest post by Eyal
In her famous book, “The March of Folly”, Barbara Tuchman described how nations pursue actions and policies that are clearly against their self interest. I was very young when I read that book for the first time, and I didn’t believe that sane, rational, responsible people could really behave that way. Sadly, the past two-and-half years of Israeli policy could make for a wonderful new chapter in that book.
The headline of today’s Yedioth Aharonot newspaper screamed: “Lieberman: The Coalition will Collapse if Netanyahu does not Punish the Palestinians”. It then elaborates that in response to the Palestinian’s move in the UN, Lieberman (the Foreign Minister, mind you) demands that Israel cancel the Oslo accords, annex settlement blocks, and withhold funds from the Palestinian Authority. Lieberman has since (rather dubiously) denied that specific quote, but it follows a series of similar quotes by him and his side-kick, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, warning of unilateral measure if the Palestinians make a bid for recognition in the UN.
Needless to say, that any such actions will have a significant boomerang effect on Israel. At best, they will result in widespread international condemnation and even further political alienation. At worst, they will result in the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and bring back Israel to the position of being responsible, once more, for the livelihood of 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. These threats are a fine example of how Israel’s current government is putting internal political considerations over national self interest.
Writing in today’s newspaper, Nahum Barnea writes:
If Israel creates a situation in-which Palestinian security forces don’t get their pay, there will be no one to hold back violent protests from spilling over to settlements and into Israel. In extreme scenarios, Palestinian policemen will turn their guns on Israeli security forces. Those who insist on sowing wind will end up reaping a storm.
After two-and-a-half years in power, it is evident that Netanyahu is a caricature of a leader. He is widely regarded as weak and incapable of making decisions. He is obsessed by polls and his desire to remain in power. But he is not a stupid man, and so rationally he probably understands the concessions that have to be made. But it seems that he is constrained by his right-wing ideology and his extreme surrounding environment. The result has been a policy “sit and do absolutely nothing”, because doing anything dramatic will alienate his base and put his coalition at risk. And so he grants a temporarily freeze on building in the settlements while signing off on new building projects in East Jerusalem; calls for a two-state solution, and avoids making the concessions required for such a solution; calls for unconditional negotiations while imposing conditions of his own, knowing that they will not be met. Each action met by an opposite, counterbalanced action. So long as the equilibrium is maintained.
Admittedly, Netanyahu is not alone at fault here, and the Palestinians have their share of responsibility in the breakdown of the peace process. But ultimately, avoiding a one-state solution with a Palestinian majority is an Israeli interest, and the Netanyahu government has been sadly lacking in its policy in that respect. It seems that Netanyahu’s chief concern is not preventing a one state solution, but protecting himself against his chief political ally and adversary, Avigdor Leiberman.
Lieberman is everything Netanyahu is not. He is an incredibly cynical and calculated politician, almost at a Machiavellian level, and for the past two years has been steadily vying for the leadership of the Israeli right by catering to knee-jerk reactionaries and portraying Netanyahu as weak and indecisive. Most of what Lieberman has done over the past two years is absolutely irrelevant, but it helps his public image of the big bad man with the brass balls.
And this is what the “punishments” to the Palestinians are really all about. When the Palestinians are making a move, Lieberman’s public reaction is “we’ll show those bitches off!” And either Netanyahu gets led by the nose, or stops it and gets portrayed as weak. A win-win for Lieberman. A lose for the country.
The folly can barely be comprehended. The two-state solution is widely accepted in Israel as a national interest and the best way to safeguard the country against a one-state scenario, and yet, out of fear of being outflanked by his political “allies”, Netanyahu has done almost everything to prevent it, and has led Israel to its lowest point in decades. The results of such scenarios are best exemplified by the crisis with Turkey. Writing on the matter, Tom Friedman wrote:
[T]he two sides agreed that Israel would apologize only for “operational mistakes” and the Turks would agree to not raise legal claims. Bibi then undercut his own lawyers and rejected the deal, out of national pride and fear that Mr. Lieberman would use it against him. So Turkey threw out the Israeli ambassador.
It would all be very funny if we weren’t talking about the leaders of the state.
As September draws to an end, and the Palestinian move for recognition grows closer, it’s high time that Netanyahu stops acting like a scared backbench politician and starts acting like a leader. The parameters of the agreement are well known; they have been for about ten years of so. It’s time that Netanyahu free himself from his political concerns and his ideological inhibitions and put national interest first. It won’t be easy, and there’s no guarantee that the end result can be actually be achieved, but continuing present policies will only worsen Israel’s condition and put it on a path to a new march of folly.
