Israeli right buries head in sand
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to ignore warnings by the Obama administration and by the European Union over the collapse of the two-state solution.
In less than two days in Washington this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stirred up a minor storm on the right. First, he declared his commitment to a two-state solution on Nov. 9, and the following day he hinted that he was contemplating unilateral moves in the West Bank.
He made his first statement during the photo op at the start of his meeting with US President Barack Obama.
His second, surprising statement was made during a conference at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, where he admitted that he does not rule out unilateral Israeli moves in the West Bank. But these, he added, would have to meet Israeli security criteria and would also require broad international understanding — caveats that reinforced his remark and suggested that it was well thought out and not a shot from the hip. Netanyahu’s interesting remark during the US visit, at the height of a wave of terror, made immediate headlines on news sites — finally, a new and daring statement by the prime minister, who appears to have been mostly engaged in managing the conflict for the past 6½ years, rather than in solving it.
But this one-sided interest did not last very long. Several hours later, Netanyahu explained on Facebook that he had no intention "to uproot or evacuate settlements … That mistake will not be repeated … I didn’t speak [last night in the United States] about a unilateral withdrawal, but rather about one-sided steps that could strengthen Israel’s security and national interests against terrorism,” he wrote.
