When Netanyahu even bores himself


June 13, 2015
Sarah Benton

Reports on the conference from 1) Carlo Strenger, Haaretz, 2) Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel 3) JTA, on the divisions over Palestine. Plus Note on the Herzliya conference.


Ehud Barak gave ‘a very lucid and incisive speech’ on ‘delegitimisation’ – unlike PM Netanyahu. Photo from Herzliya Conference, Facebook.

Netanyahu’s masterclass in how to lose friends and alienate your allies

The prime minister’s years in power have been disastrous for Israel’s standing in the Western world – which isn’t dumb, as he seems to think.

By Carlo Strenger, Strenger than fiction blog, Haaretz
June 13, 2015

This week I attended the Herzliya Conference, Israel’s most important annual policy event, organized and hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center and chaired by political scientist Alex Mintz. One of this year’s recurring themes was the rise of the BDS movement and Israel’s growing isolation. There were some calm and rational expositions – for example, by Ehud Barak and Isaac Herzog – and a number of experts and politicians from abroad, like Prof. Stephen Krasner from Stanford University and Johann Wadephul, Near Eastern Affairs speaker for the Christian Democrats in the German Bundestag.

All agreed that the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement is swelling on the fringes, particularly the extreme left, in Europe and the United States. All also agreed that none of the mainstream political parties in the West question Israel’s legitimacy, even though they strongly criticize the settlement policy – which, as all pointed out, increasingly endangers the feasibility of the two-state solution.

This was in stark contrast to speakers from the political right, ranging from new Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, who, in one of the worst speeches I’ve heard in a long time – most of which, unsurprisingly, was about Iran – kept lumping all criticism of Israel together as delegitimizing Israel’s existence, and arguing that criticism of Israel is a new form of anti-Semitism.

I must admit, I always wonder whether Netanyahu actually believes what he is saying, or whether he thinks that by crying “Delegitimization!” he has found a rhetorical ploy that works on the international stage. If he truly believes what he says, he has a genuine problem with reality perception. And if he believes his ploy is working, he is grievously wrong.

Differentiating between legitimate criticism between friends and delegitimization is crucial in maintaining friendly relations with the West, as former Prime Minister Barak pointed out in a very lucid and incisive speech. He made clear that while Israel’s existence is indeed delegitimized in large parts of the Arab World and fringes of the Western left, this is simply not true in mainstream Western countries – and conflating the two is wrong and dangerous.

I can attest to the truth of Barak’s statement on the grounds of long experience. I have been fighting BDS, particularly in academia, for many years, whether in Britain or the United States. And the best weapon in this fight has always been to differentiate between legitimate criticism of Israel and attacks that deny Israel’s right to exist and apply a double standard.

In doing so I apply a simple standard: In the Western world, criticism between friends is part and parcel of the political and diplomatic culture. The United States has been fiercely criticized both from within and without for its detention camp at Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition and targeted killings. But this does not mean the United States is delegitimized. There is, therefore, a simple criterion for acceptable criticism of Israel: Any criticism that can be applied to the United States can be legitimately applied to Israel, whereas the claim that the very idea of Israel as the sovereign nation-state of the Jews is illegitimate must be attacked as moral hypocrisy.

Netanyahu and Israel’s political right keep violating this distinction between legitimate criticism and delegitimization, and the consequences are devastating: I keep speaking to European politicians and diplomats, many of whom are genuine friends of Israel, who are deeply alienated when every criticism of specific Israeli policies is labeled anti-Semitic or described as undermining Israel’s existence.

Consequently, six years of Netanyahu’s rule have been disastrous for Israel’s standing in the world. At the heart of this isolation is the prime minister’s basic fault: he keeps pontificating to the world that Israel is the West’s outpost in the Middle East. Yet what he simply seems incapable of understanding is that the Western world does not judge Israel by Netanyahu’s pronouncements and moralizing, but by its actual behaviour and statements. And yes, the West judges Israel by a different standard from the rest of the Middle East, precisely because it is seen as belonging to the West.

The great German historian Heinrich August Winkler has just finished his monumental history of the West [“The Age of Catastrophe: A History of the West 1914-1945”], and the theme that runs through the work’s thousands of pages is that at the foundation of the West, there is the normative project of the rule of law, equality and freedom of the individual. Any country that does not adhere to these standards, particularly since WWII and the declaration of human rights, is not seen as belonging to the Western community.

Samuel Huntington, one of the 20th century’s greatest political scientists, has become famous for the term “Clash of Civilizations” (which was actually coined by historian Bernard Lewis), which is often misunderstood. Huntington, a lifelong Democrat, did not advocate such a clash, but predicted that the long-term alliances that structure world politics are based along civilizational lines, and that the major conflicts would run along the fault lines between these civilizations. And civilizations are defined by common values and shared basic worldviews.

Netanyahu cannot have it both ways: He cannot continue his incantation that Israel is the West’s representative in the Middle East and then behave in ways that do not behoove Western standards. In particular, he must recognize that the rest of the world is not stupid.

He would do well to listen carefully to what German parliamentarian Wadephul said at the conference. He reasserted Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that Israel’s security is one of Germany’s reasons of state. But he also said Germany cannot defend Israel on the diplomatic front on its own, and that Israel must give clear answers to a number of questions. Is it indeed committed to the two-state solution? And when Netanyahu insists that Israel must be a Jewish state, does this include full rights for all its citizens?

Netanyahu seems to think he can continue zigzagging on these crucial points. That he can say “The Arabs going to vote in their droves” and “There will be no Palestinian state on my watch” when it suits him politically, only to backtrack when he realizes, belatedly, how phenomenally harmful his utterances are. The Western world applies to him what he applies to the Palestinians: They listen to what he says to his electorate more than what he says for outside consumption. He shouldn’t be surprised when he finds himself without friends on the international scene.



‘Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, above, dismissed the prospect of a peace deal entirely. Instead, she said mass Jewish immigration to Israel is the solution, as millions more Jews would eliminate any danger of Palestinians gaining a majority in Israel.’ See item 3 below. As Netanyahu is his own foreign minister, Hotovely is the acting foreign minister. Photo by Flash90

Netanyahu talks a lot, says little, in strikingly uninspiring Herzliya address

If the PM made any history at prestigious annual conference, it was for arguably his weakest speech in years

By Raphael Ahren, diplomatic correspondent, Times of Israel
June 10, 2015

Some Israeli politicians make history at the Herzliya Conference, the country’s premier politics and security gathering. In 2003, for instance, prime minister Ariel Sharon told the world for the first time about his plan to disengage from Gaza.

On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have also made history, in a sense — by delivering what was arguably his weakest speech in years, if not one of the weakest of his career: lackluster, meandering, repetitive, at times banal. Perhaps worst of all for a politician, it was uninspiring.

Prime ministers give many speeches and can’t be expected to reinvent the wheel every time they take the podium. But while Netanyahu’s one-hour filibuster was characteristic in that the content offered very little in the way of dramatic news, it was strikingly atypical for a usually brilliant rhetorician. Remember his speech to Congress in March? Supportive or not of his decision to lobby in DC against the president, his address was resonant, fluent, well-argued, mesmerizing.

Apparently speaking without a written text, on Tuesday evening he seemed tired and under prepared. He packaged his policy positions in largely familiar sound bites, and lacked his usual oratorical punch in delivering them.

Netanyahu started off by quoting Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who had just told him that he considers Israel a “global digital powerhouse,” and dwelt for several minutes on Israel’s high-tech prowess. After praising himself for a currency reform he initiated in the 1990s, he then waxed over his close personal friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, taking particular pride in a Hebrew tweet with which Modi had congratulated him on his election victory.

Israel is the “land of milk and honey… and gas,” Netanyahu then wisecracked, referring to the country’s natural gas reserves, and getting little more than a few polite chuckles. “We have received a great gift from nature. The gas must be extracted from the sea and brought to the Israeli economy.” Okay. Whatever.

After about 20 minutes, he finally reached his favourite topics: the dangers of radical Islam, and especially, of course, the Iranian nuclear threat, the Islamic State, and Palestinian recalcitrance. But even here, he seemed strangely distant.

Switching curiously from Hebrew to English and back, his underwhelming address even on these issues stood in stark contrast to the powerful talk former prime minister Ehud Barak had delivered right before him. Barak called for a construction freeze outside the settlement blocs and for a regional agreement with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Real leaders don’t shy away from bold steps toward peace, even if they involve grave risks, Barak thundered, with such force that some pundits began to wonder whether he was considering a comeback.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, reiterated his familiar readiness in principle for a two-state solution but in the same breath explained why that wouldn’t happen any time soon. He called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to negotiations without preconditions, but then noted that Abbas surely wouldn’t. “Why should he talk? He can get by without talking,” said the prime minister sardonically. “He can get by with an international community that blames Israel for not having talks.”

About 15 minutes and several topics later, he swung back to the peace process, vaguely. “The solution that I propose requires laborious, serious, deep negotiations. And even then we’ll have to buttress it with other safeguards.”

What about Iran? The Islamic Republic is more dangerous than the Islamic State, he asserted unsurprisingly, and it’s better not to imagine what would happen if the regime had nuclear weapons.

Displaying some self-awareness, Netanyahu acknowledged that he’s “often portrayed as the nuclear party pooper,” but said somebody needs to say what needs to be said. And so he said it, again and again.

Another point the prime minister made repeatedly on Tuesday evening was his hope for enhanced co-operation with Israel’s Arab neighbours. Indeed, he acknowledged publicly what he has been saying in private conversations for some time now: that he converses regularly with the heads of Sunni states in the region.

“I speak with quite a few of our neighbours, more than you think,” he said, but without going into specifics. Their fear of a nuclear Iran and of IS “creates a change and a potential for co-operation, perhaps even to resolve the problem that we want to resolve with the Palestinians.”

There might be an opening for peace, since “some of the Arab states silently agree with what I say,” he vouchsafed, but again without providing any details.

“They might be in a position to influence the Palestinians to adopt a more conciliatory and positive approach,” he suggested. “It’ll be hard, because all politics is theatre, and international politics is also theatre, and everyone is cast in a role.”

Cast in a role? If so, on Tuesday night, in the concluding address of the Herzliya conference, Netanyahu sounded unusually disengaged from his.


At security confab, Israeli coalition members split on West Bank policy

By Ben Sales, JTA
June 09, 2015

HERZLIYA, Israel — When Israel’s coalition government formed last month,         map
its constituent parties all but ruled out establishing a Palestinian
state in the near future. But that doesn’t mean they can agree on what
to do instead.

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference this week, Israel’s premier diplomatic and security policy gathering, senior Israeli government officials struck different and sometimes conflicting tones on what Israel’s policy should be toward the Palestinians. Even within the ruling Likud party, officials advanced significantly different proposals for the the future of the West Bank.

Some favour indefinite control of the territory. Others support negotiations and interim steps to prepare the ground for a future partition. Others want to hang tight while the wars roiling the Middle East play out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on the eve of his re-election in March appeared to reverse his earlier support for Palestinian statehood, portrayed himself in his conference address on Tuesday as having never shifted his position on the subject. He called on the Arab world to push the Palestinians toward negotiations and insisted that, in a final agreement, the Palestinian Authority would have to agree to a demilitarized state and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition they have thus far refused.

“There might be an opening, because some of the Arab states silently agree with what I say,” Netanyahu said. “They might be in the position to influence the Palestinians to adopt a more conciliatory or positive approach. It will be hard, because all politics is theatre, and international politics is theatre, too, and everyone is cast in a role.”

Held annually at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a college founded in 1994, the Herzliya Conference brings together top officials from Israel’s government, diplomatic and defence arenas to discuss threats facing Israel and the Middle East. The conference, held from June 7-9, offers a peek into the minds of Israel’s leading decision makers and occasionally provides a venue for Israeli leaders to make important announcements.

There were no such big developments this year, but the conference did reveal the extent of the disagreement within the Israeli government about the appropriate path forward in resolving Israel’s decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

Likud Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon was more pessimistic than his boss on Tuesday, declaring a “stable agreement” with the Palestinians unlikely in his lifetime. Though Ya’alon, who is 64, suggested measures to improve the Palestinian economy and local Palestinian government, he rejected any limitation on Israeli military operations in the West Bank, saying that could invite a takeover by Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza.
“There’s really something stable here,” Ya’alon said, referring to the West Bank. “Should we upset it out of wishful thinking? So we’re suggesting, within the framework of not ruling them, steps that make it possible for both sides to live in welfare, to live with respect, to live in security without illusions.”

Likud Interior Minister Silvan Shalom, who would serve as Israel’s chief delegate to peace talks should they resume, struck a more optimistic tone in his Monday address, calling for a regional conference of Israel and the Arab states to confront shared regional threats, and encouraging the Palestinians to return to bilateral negotiations with Israel without preconditions.

“We believe the only way to achieve a solution is through peace, and peace can be achieved only through negotiations,” Shalom said. “If they are willing to do so, and to resume the negotiations, they will find Israel as a real and serious partner to peace.”

But Likud Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely dismissed the prospect of a peace deal entirely. Instead, she said mass Jewish immigration to Israel is the solution, as millions more Jews would eliminate any danger of Palestinians gaining a majority in Israel.

“This is the Zionist vision: It was always connected to the tradition, connected to the Bible, connected to Jewish history,” she said. “It won’t be achieved by dividing the land. That’s not what will bring Israel legitimacy. Israel needs to be right. Israel needs to continue in its Zionist direction.”

At last year’s conference, held just months after an intensive round of Israeli-Palestinian talks had collapsed, pro-settler Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett advocated annexing the Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem. This year, with the prospect of Israeli withdrawal no longer under discussion, he made scant mention of the West Bank, saying simply that he and the foreign governments urging territorial concessions would have to “agree to disagree.”

Instead, he turned to another territory Israel captured in 1967, the Golan Heights, calling on the international community to recognize Israel’s sovereignty there. The civil war in Syria has made withdrawal impossible, he said, advocating instead that Israel move tens of thousands of Jews to the strategic plateau in the next five years.

“Whom should we give the Golan to, to al-Nusra? To al-Qaida?” he asked, referring to two terrorist groups active in Syria. “Why do they still not recognize the Golan? What’s the reasoning? If we had listened to the world, we would have given away the Golan, and ISIS would have been on the Sea of Galilee.”

While they disagreed on the peace process, Israel’s officials advanced a unified front in opposing boycotts of Israel. Many alluded to recent statements by Stephane Richard, CEO of the French telecommunications giant Orange, suggesting he would pull his business out of Israel. They called on Israel to fight back against boycott efforts, marshaling the buying power of its supporters to boycott companies that boycott Israel.

“We have disagreements in many other issues — peace, security, economy,” Shalom said. “But we are very united about fighting back [against] the boycott. And I am sure that if we keep our unity, finally, we will prevail.”

Note

from Wikipedia

The Herzliya Conference, hosted by the Interdisciplinary Centre at Herzliya, is Israel’s centre stage for the articulation of national policy by its most prominent leaders, including the Israeli President, the Prime Minister, the IDF Chief of General Staff, and the leading contenders for high political office.

Central issues that were first raised or emphasized in the conferences have become part of the public discourse in Israel. The Israeli government authorities have adopted numerous Herzliya Conference reports and recommendations as official policy.

The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS), Headed by Prof. Alex Mintz, a part of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya (IDC) in Israel, sponsors the Herzliya Conference. The objective of the institute is to enhance Israel’s national policy and contribute to the upgrading of its strategic decision-making process, through policy-driven research and interaction between policy analysts and policy-makers.

The IPS deals in national security, military and strategic affairs, international relations and politics, policy formation, intelligence and governance, the Jewish people and their relation to Israel, economy, technology, science, infrastructure, natural resources, environment, social policy and education.

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