Two words — “history” and “opportunity”— stand out in stark relief from the Jan. 25 public declarations by Israeli interim Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of his departure for Washington: “I'm leaving for Washington …and I'm hopeful we can make history”; “An opportunity such as this comes once in history and cannot be missed”; “I am full of hope that we are on the verge of a historic moment in the annals of our state”; “I am leaving for Washington with a sense of great mission, of great responsibility and of great opportunity.” Netanyahu's political rival, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, was more restrained and made do with using the word “historic” only once. The American blueprint, Gantz said at a Jan. 25 news conference in announcing that he, too, would travel to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump, was a “meaningful milestone, setting out the path for the sides to the Middle East conflict to march toward a regional, historic deal.”

Netanyahu was not exaggerating. This is the first time in the history of the Israeli state that such a blatant and obvious move has been undertaken to mobilize a foreign leader, Trump, for the election campaign of a ruling Israeli party, the Likud. Indeed, the political ploy known as the “deal of the century” was designed to provide a unique opportunity to remove Netanyahu’s corruption indictment from the headlines. Gantz managed to avoid this political trap that Netanyahu and his White House partners had set for him. Netanyahu’s talk about a “great mission” and “great responsibility,” and his warning that Israel must not miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime offer did not deter Gantz from another mission: his fight to ensure that the Knesset rejects Netanyahu’s corrupt request for immunity from prosecution.

Gantz will find it harder, however, to avoid the diplomatic honey trap set for him in Washington. The man who declared as recently as Jan. 21 that the Jordan Valley must be “an inseparable part” of Israel cannot get away without praising the US peace plan that includes the annexation of the Jordan Valley. His use of the words “significant milestone” to describe the plan was an evasive description that left him significant room for diplomatic maneuver. The more appropriate term to describe the American blueprint is not a “milestone” but a “millstone,” around the neck of peace lovers.

Gantz, who as army chief was privy to intelligence assessments, obviously knows that the hope he expressed that the Palestinians would “march toward” a plan based on the annexation of occupied territories and recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people is baseless nonsense. He presumably understands that an initiative that includes the elimination of the Arab presence from Jerusalem's Holy Basin is at complete odds with his desire to deepen Israel’s strategic partnership with Jordan, Egypt and other countries in the region and beyond.