Netanyahu is one of 12 Mid East leaders saying no
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis May 20, 2011, 7:38 PM (GMT+02:00)
By rejecting US President Barack Obama's proposal for Israel and its troops to pull back from the West Bank to behind the indefensible 1967 lines, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lands in the company of eleven Middle East and North African rulers who spurned Washington's Middle East policy in the six months of the unfolding Arab uprising. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was the only one to keep faith with Obama and he was pushed out for his pains.
Barack Obama's presentation of his Middle East vision Thursday, May 19 had three immediate results:
1. Every surviving regional leader was confirmed in his determination to keep his distance from US administration policies;
2. Another nail was driven in the coffin of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process;
3. The fuel that was poured on regional tensions increased the prospects of an Israel-Palestinian or an Israeli-Arab war this year.
No Israeli politician can afford to back away from the demand that Israel retain a security presence and defensible borders along its eastern boundary and, even more so, on the West Bank in any future peace accord. This fundamental principle was not denied by opposition leaders Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz even as they poured boiling oil on the prime minister's head for getting into an argument with the US president.
But this repudiation is exactly what Obama wants.
The notion that Israel can achieve security through peace talks is a pipe dream because no Palestinian negotiator will think of seeking fewer concessions from Israel than the ones laid down by the US president. He will simply use the speech as a starting-point for the biggest squeeze Israel has ever faced.
