Aug 7th 2014

Will Netanyahu Seize The Moment?

by Alon Ben-Meir

A noted journalist and author, Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is professor of international relations and Middle East studies at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University. Ben-Meir holds a masters degree in philosophy and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. His exceptional knowledge and insight, the result of more than 20 years of direct involvement in foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East, has allowed Dr. Ben-Meir to offer a uniquely invaluable perspective on the nature of world terrorism, conflict resolution and international negotiations. Fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, Ben-Meir's frequent travels to the Middle East and meetings with highly placed officials and academics in many Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Turkey provide him with an exceptionally nuanced level of awareness and insight into the developments surrounding breaking news. Ben-Meir often articulates

There is a growing consensus among Israelis and Arabs that the Israel-Hamas war will end just like the 2009 and 2012 encounters. Hamas will declare victory by pointing out the casualties and pain inflicted on the Israelis and the likely limited relief it will obtain from the crippling blockade. Israel will be satisfied that Hamas’ military capability and infrastructure is destroyed or seriously degraded while leaving Hamas’ governing structure basically intact, as Netanyahu prefers the lesser of two evils—a weakened Hamas rather than the rise of a Jihadist authority in Gaza.

The status quo that existed before the war will gradually be restored, Hamas will rebuild its shattered forces, tunnels, and a new cache of rockets with greater sophistication, and Israel will prepare for the next round of fighting to keep Hamas at bay.

This scenario is sadder than sad; it projects hopelessness about the prospect of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and disregards the repeated heavy toll these mini-wars exact in destruction, death of innocent civilians, and human suffering, further deepening emotional scars and making peace ever more elusive.

Can this appalling scenario be avoided? What would it take, and by whom? The answer lies at the heart of two principle requirements:

Israel rightfully insists that Hamas must permanently renounce violence and disavow its stated objective to destroy Israel as a precondition to lifting the blockade; Hamas demands the lifting of the blockade to allow for the free flow of goods and travel as a precondition to any enduring ceasefire. Both demands are extraordinarily difficult to accept as neither is prepared to concede without meeting the other’s demand.

Both sides have agreed in the past on ceasefires, which met their objectives only in part. Unfortunately, the lull in hostilities during those periods was not utilized by either side to foster more sustainable peaceful relations.

Although Israel and Hamas view each other as mortal enemies, this war has forced them once again to recognize that neither can destroy the other, and they must now begin to moderate their religious or ideological narratives, necessitated by the changing circumstances. In reality, Israel can reoccupy Gaza and topple Hamas, but Netanyahu does not want, and wisely so, to assume the burden of administering the Strip and caring for nearly two million Palestinians without a viable exit strategy and without leaving behind sustainable calm. Equally, Hamas realized that firing over 3,000 rockets at Israel and its efforts to kill or kidnap Israelis has had little effect.

The fundamental difference in this war, however, may well change Israel’s and Hamas’ calculus:

Never before has Hamas been so strapped for funds and isolated. Egypt destroyed the tunnels leading to Gaza, virtually ending the flow of goods and depriving Hamas from collecting taxes, and closed the Rafah border crossing. Iran’s financial aid was reduced to a trickle, and the continuing Israeli blockade and the lack of financial and political support from the Arab states and the PA (with the exception of Qatar and Turkey) added immeasurably to Hamas’ woes.

All combined have left Hamas with no prospect of improving the conditions of its despairing populace to stem the growing public restiveness and discontent. With little left to lose, Hamas ignited a new crisis to shake up the status quo, hoping to change the dynamic of the conflict from which it could benefit, regardless of the risks involved.

Conversely, Netanyahu’s popularity has soared; public trust in his leadership has never been deeper. He has understood the limits of what Israel can do and shown restraint by rejecting calls from his right-wing political partners to expand the war beyond his stated objective—the destruction of the tunnels and Hamas’ infrastructure.

The question for Netanyahu is whether he would be willing to return to Gaza and “mow the lawn” again, and if that would secure Israel’s future despite the lack of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before he departs the political scene.

Netanyahu is a zealous ideologue who believes that Israel is not an occupying power and that the entire Holy Land, including the West Bank, is an inseparable part of the Jews’ existence and whose redemption is intertwined with the redemption of their land.

With this deep conviction, can Netanyahu change his position and take a historic leap of faith to work toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

I disagree with those who suggest that Netanyahu will never change his stripes. Many deeply ideological leaders before him have unexpectedly risen to the occasion to answer the call from their people and the international community for a drastic change.

Former Israeli Prime Ministers Begin and Sharon, de Klerk of South Africa, and Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union are some prominent leaders who unpredictably changed their political convictions and direction; Netanyahu himself had unpredictably accepted the Wye River Memorandum.

Netanyahu is a skilled and astute politician; he knows how to rally the people around him, is not deterred by obstacles, believes in himself, and is totally dedicated to Israel’s national security.

The time and circumstances in which he finds himself now place his deep ideological conviction against the unmitigated reality of the Palestinians. As a leader, he now realizes that the condition in which he finds himself provides him a pivotal moment in time that may not be repeated to seek an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As John F. Kennedy once said, “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

The current 72-hour ceasefire provides an opportunity for Netanyahu to demonstrate leadership, courage, and vision, and shift the onus entirely on Hamas and those countries critical of the blockade.

He should offer a complete lifting of the blockade in phases over a period of time (two to three years), provided that Hamas agrees to renounce violence and demilitarize Gaza. Hamas must also agree to the stationing of a robust international force to monitor the borders and PA security forces to supervise the crossings from Gaza into Israel and Egypt.

In addition, Hamas must adopt the Arab Peace Initiative, which would mean implicitly recognizing Israel and at the same time offering Hamas a face-saving way out.

Whether or not Hamas agrees to this Initiative, Netanyahu will emerge as a statesman who is ready to strike a deal that the whole world would embrace while achieving a remarkable feat without risking much, radically changing the outlook for the resumption of serious peace negotiations.

Ultimately, Israel’s long-term national security rests on ending the blockade and neutralizing the threat from the West Bank in particular by negotiating with any representative Palestinian government and ending the occupation under mutually accepted terms.

Netanyahu has served as Prime Minister longer than any of his predecessors, with the exception of Israel’s founder, David Ben-Gurion. Like any other leader, Netanyahu is surely thinking about his legacy and likely wants to be remembered as the prime minster who led his people to a lasting peace, rather than leaving Israel even more insecure and vulnerable.

Will Netanyahu seize the moment and give the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians the greatest gift—to live, grow and prosper together in peace?

Maybe I am a dreamer, but as Victor Hugo once observed: “There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Omicron and market sell-off: don’t be surprised if there’s more turbulence to come
by Arturo Bris
Nov 30th 2021
EXTRACT: "So it could well be that, despite the faster spread of the infection, its ultimate health, social and economic impact proves negligible. We simply do not know at this point. But detecting more uncertainty than before, financial markets have reacted with panic. For example, the S&P500 tumbled 2.3% on Friday November 26 only to rise 1.1% on Monday November 29. Most markets gave up between 2% and 4%, which is a pretty substantial one-day fall."
Xi's Backward Odyssey 
by Joschka Fischer
Nov 28th 2021
EXTRACT: "Momentous changes are casting a long shadow on China. The country’s political system will soon undergo a profound reform, pending final approval (a quasi-formality) at next year’s congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). President Xi Jinping, the Party chairman and the “navigator” of the country, has decided on a new course, abandoning the principle of collective leadership. Xi is leading China away from the path taken by Deng Xiaoping after the terror of the Cultural Revolution, and back toward a system of absolute rule by one person without term limits, as under Mao Zedong."
China Is Holding the Planet Hostage
by Chris Patten
Nov 25th 2021
EXTRACTS: "”The biggest disappointment in Glasgow was the last-minute watering down of the proposed (and widely supported) agreement to “phase out” the use of coal in energy production. With India providing political cover for China in vetoing this language, the final conference proposal was to “phase down” coal”. ---- “China accounts for more than half of the world’s coal consumption, and has the largest amount of coal-fired generating capacity under construction. Pressed about why his country would not do more in Glasgow to help save the planet, China’s chief negotiator pointed to the commitments in the Communist Party of China’s current Five-Year Plan. So, our future now depends on the CPC’s program. The tragedy for the world is that the Party cannot be phased down, much less phased out, despite the fact that it is a huge threat to the future of all of us.” ------ “To save the planet, robust democratic leadership must be phased up – not phased down, let alone phased out. Rather than merely keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best, we should start by calling out the appalling behavior of dictatorships such as China and Russia.”
The Fed Must Think Creatively Again 
by Stephen S. Roach
Nov 22nd 2021
EXTRACT: "The transitory inflation debate in the United States is over. The upsurge in US inflation has turned into something far worse than the Federal Reserve expected. Perpetually optimistic financial markets are taking this largely in stride. The Fed is widely presumed to have both the wisdom and the firepower to keep underlying inflation in check. That remains to be seen."
Good Climate News: US will increase Solar Power by nearly 50% in 2022, and add 29 Gigawatts of Wind
by Juan Cole
Nov 14th 2021
EXTRACT: "S&P projects that companies are planning to install 44 gigawatts of new solar in 2022. The year 2020, despite the onset of the pandemic, saw a record-breaking 19 gigawatts of new solar capacity installed in the U.S. So given the bids out there already, it appears that in 2022 solar installers will more than double their best year ever so far. The U.S. currently has 100 gigawatts of solar electricity-generating capacity, so in just one year we are poised to add nearly 50% of our current total. A gigawatt of power can provide electricity to about 750,000 homes. So the 44 new gigawatts we’ll put in next year have a nameplate capacity that would under ideal conditions allow them to power 33 million homes." ----- "Not only is there a lot of good news on the green energy front but there is good news in the bad news for fossil fuels. S&P finds that coal plants are being retired way before the utilities had expected. Some 29 gigawatts of coal retirements are expected from 2020 through 2025. "
Éric Zemmour and the Revenge of Vichy 
by Ian Buruma
Nov 3rd 2021
EXTRACT: "Zemmour’s way of thinking stems from a tradition going back to the French Revolution of 1789. Catholic conservatives and right-wing intellectuals, who hated the secular republic that emerged from the revolution, have long fulminated against liberals, cosmopolitans, immigrants, and other enemies of their idea of a society based on ethnic purity, obedience to the church, and family values. They were almost invariably anti-Semitic. When Jewish army Captain Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of betraying his country in the notorious scandal of the 1890s, they were on the side of Dreyfus’s accusers. ---- Germany’s invasion of France in 1940 gave reactionaries of this kind the chance to form a French puppet-government in Vichy. Zemmour has had kind things to say about the Vichy regime. He also has expressed some doubt about the innocence of Dreyfus. ---- None of these views would be surprising if they came from a far-right agitator like Jean-Marie Le Pen. But Zemmour is the son of Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Algeria who lived among the Muslim Berbers."
Russia's Communist Comeback 
by Nina L. Khrushcheva
Oct 27th 2021
EXTRACT: "performed strongly in last month’s parliamentary and regional elections. Officially, Communist Party candidates took 18.9% of the popular vote for the State Duma (parliament), compared to nearly 49.8% for the Kremlin’s United Russia party. But the Communists refused to recognize the results, insisting that the vote was rigged. And, indeed, some experts estimate that they should have gotten around 30% of the vote, with United Russia taking about 35%."
Colin Powell and the Meaning of Charisma 
by Chris Patten
Oct 22nd 2021
EXTRACT: "Powell was charismatic in the true sense of the term. Nowadays, this description is too often used to indicate an ability to attract supporters or generate celebrity interest. Internet lists of those who are regarded as charismatic include characters as varied as Adolf Hitler, Bono, Donald Trump, George Clooney, and Rihanna. But the ancient Greeks and Saint Paul used “charisma” to describe values-based leadership infused with a charm capable of inspiring devotion. The Greeks believed that this quality was a gift of grace, while Christian theology regarded it as a power given by the Holy Spirit."
China's Self-Destructive Tech Takedown
by William R. Rhodes and Stuart P.M. Mackintosh
Oct 17th 2021
EXTRACTS: "But property-sector woes are not the only economic danger China faces in 2021-22. The Chinese government’s mounting crackdown on the country’s burgeoning tech sector may pose an even greater threat." ---- "According to a recent study by McKinsey & Company, the share of Chinese urban employment supported by private enterprises more than quadrupled between 1995 and 2018, from just 18% to 87%. The share of exports generated by the private sector more than doubled over the same period, from 34% to 88%. And private-sector fixed-asset investment jumped from 42% to 65% of the total. The message in the data is clear: clamping down on the private sector and threatening innovators is not the way to ensure sustained rapid growth. Chinese entrepreneurs can read the writing on the wall. They understand that their political and regulatory room to maneuver is shrinking, and that the balance has shifted in favor of state-owned firms and public officials. And they understand that this uneasy atmosphere is likely to persist."
Solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand – new research
by Siddharth Joshi, James Glynn and Shivika Mittal
Oct 16th 2021
EXTRACT: "We designed a programme that incorporated data from over 300 million buildings and analysed 130 million km² of land – almost the entire land surface area of the planet. This estimated how much energy could be produced from the 0.2 million km² of rooftops present on that land, an area roughly the same size as the UK."
Global Britain is becoming a stooge of the US
by Victoria Honeyman
Oct 6th 2021
EXTRACT: "Britain in the 1950s was wedded to the US, acting as a partner rather than leading the charge. Now, while the UK continues to support the US, the influence it has seems negligible. While it may bring comfort to the UK to feel it is a partner to a superpower, being its stooge or subordinate is an unpleasant place to be, no matter how much you tell yourself it values your opinion."
Connecting the Dots in China
by Stephen S. Roach
Oct 6th 2021
EXTRACT: "That was then. Now, the Chinese government has doubled down, with President Xi Jinping throwing the full force of his power into a “common prosperity” campaign aimed at addressing inequalities of income and wealth. Moreover, the regulatory net has been broadened, not just to ban cryptocurrencies, but also to become an instrument of social engineering, with the government adding e-cigarettes, business drinking, and celebrity fan culture to its ever-lengthening list of bad social habits. All this only compounds the concerns I raised two months ago. The new dual thrust of Chinese policy – redistribution plus re-regulation – strikes at the heart of the market-based “reform and opening up” that have underpinned China’s growth miracle since the days of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. It will subdue the entrepreneurial activity that has been so important in powering China’s dynamic private sector, with lasting consequences for the next, innovations-driven, phase of Chinese economic development. Without animal spirits, the case for indigenous innovation is in tatters."
The Specious Special Relationship 
by Ian Buruma
Oct 5th 2021
EXTRACT: "Wartime nostalgia plays an important part in Britain’s instinctive fondness for the special relationship. Like former Prime Minister Tony Blair in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, some British politicians might believe that the United Kingdom is the only European country with serious armed forces and the political will to use them. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, like Blair before him, seems to fancy himself a modern-day Churchill. Unfortunately (or not), Britain’s military power is insignificant compared to what Churchill could command in 1944. Wartime nostalgia has drawn Britain into several foolish American wars, which other European countries were wise to avoid."
21 million Americans say Biden is ‘illegitimate’ and Trump should be restored by violence, survey finds
by Robert A. Pape
Sep 24th 2021
EXTRACTS: "We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1 in 5 – agree with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those, 21 million also agree that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.” Our survey found that many of these 21 million people with insurrectionist sentiments have the capacity for violent mobilization. At least 7 million of them already own a gun, and at least 3 million have served in the U.S. military and so have lethal skills. Of those 21 million, 6 million said they supported right-wing militias and extremist groups, and 1 million said they are themselves or personally know a member of such a group, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys." ----- "..... the Jan. 6 insurrection represents a far more mainstream movement than earlier instances of right-wing extremism across the country. Those events, mostly limited to white supremacist and militia groups, saw more than 100 individuals arrested from 2015 to 2020. But just 14% of those arrested for their actions on Jan. 6 are members of those groups. More than half are business owners or middle-aged white-collar professionals, and only 7% are unemployed."
9/11 did not change the world – it was already on the path to decades of conflict
by Paul Rogers
Sep 11th 2021
EXTRACT: "That long path, though, has from the start had within it one fundamental flaw. If we are to make sense of wider global trends in insecurity, we have to recognise that in all the analysis around the 9/11 anniversary there lies the belief that the main security concern must be with an extreme version of Islam. It may seem a reasonable mistake, given the impact of the wars, but it still misses the point. The war on terror is better seen as one part of a global trend which goes well beyond a single religious tradition – a slow but steady move towards revolts from the margins."
Income Caps and Inequality
by Sam Ben-Meir
Sep 11th 2021
EXTRACTS: "Is it not extraordinary that in a country that claims to be as enlightened and advanced as ours, the combined wealth of three individuals – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett – exceeds the total wealth of the bottom half of Americans? One has to return to the days of the pharaohs of Egypt to find a parallel to the extreme wealth inequality that we see in in America today." ...... "The top tax rate remained above 90 percent through the 1950s and did not dip below 70 percent until 1981. At no point during the decades that saw America’s greatest economic growth did the tax on the wealthy drop below 70 percent. Today it is somewhere around 37 percent. President Biden’s American Families Plan would increase the top tax rate to 39.6 percent – a fairly modest alteration, albeit in the right direction. It is true that there was a time when the top marginal tax was even lower than it is today: in the years leading up to the Great Depression it hovered around 25 percent."
The Colonial Trap 
by Ian Buruma
Sep 7th 2021
EXTRACT: "But Biden can’t be blamed for the rise of the Taliban, or the fragile state of a country that has seen far too many wars and invasions. The US should not have been there in the first place, but that is a lesson that great powers never seem to learn."
The AI Revolution and Strategic Competition with China
by Eric Schmidt
Sep 4th 2021
EXTRACT: "The world is only starting to grapple with how profound the artificial-intelligence revolution will be. AI technologies will create waves of progress in critical infrastructure, commerce, transportation, health, education, financial markets, food production, and environmental sustainability. Successful adoption of AI will drive economies, reshape societies, and determine which countries set the rules for the coming century." ----- "AI will reorganize the world and change the course of human history. The democratic world must lead that process."
The Stagflation Threat Is Real 
by Nouriel Roubini
Sep 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "Although the Fed is considering tapering its quantitative easing (QE), it will likely remain dovish and behind the curve overall. Like most central banks, it has been lured into a “debt trap” by the surge in private and public liabilities (as a share of GDP) in recent years. Even if inflation stays higher than targeted, exiting QE too soon could cause bond, credit, and stock markets to crash. That would subject the economy to a hard landing, potentially forcing the Fed to reverse itself and resume QE." ---- "After all, that is what happened between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, following the Fed’s previous attempt to raise rates and roll back QE."
Back to the Seventies?
by Kenneth Rogoff
Sep 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "Today’s economic challenges are certainly solvable, and there is no reason why inflation should have to spike."