Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an excellent response to President Barack Obama’s major speech on the Arab world and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But it came two days too late, and the net result is another hasbarah disaster for Jerusalem.
Netanyahu said May 21 that Obama had “shown his commitment to Israel’s security, both in word and deed” in his May 19 speech on the Mideast, adding: “We are working with the administration to achieve common goals.”
Why couldn’t he have said that the day of the Obama speech, instead of immediately rejecting the president’s views on moving peace talks forward?
Surely Netanyahu understood that with the gaps between the Israeli and Palestinian positions as wide as they are now, the Obama speech was not going to make a practical difference. The Palestinians are determined to push for statehood at the U.N. in September. The president’s effort to derail that effort was not enough to get them back to the negotiating table that they left last fall.
Why, then, didn’t Bibi call the Palestinians’ bluff by welcoming the president’s speech as a good starting point for peace talks — the Israeli leader wasn’t obligated to embrace every aspect of the speech — and put the onus on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Co. to resume discussions?
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Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of New York Jewish Week, where this column originally appeared.