Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA (Independent Media Review and Analysis) comments ahead of prime minister Netanyahu's upcoming policy address at Bar-Ilan University on Sunday by essentially asking,
will Netanyahu cast out logic and endorse "2 states"?:
PM Netanyahu no doubt remembers that the last time someone suggested he could get away with a policy move that conflicted with his mandate that he soon found himself on the way out the door.
Will Netanyahu say "state"?
On the one hand, he knows full well that a sovereign state, once created, remains a sovereign state even if it violates the terms under which it was created.
So all the special terms and conditions that are tacked onto the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state are just fig leafs - if one agrees to the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state. And it takes no imagination whatsoever to think through how the terms and conditions would fall by the wayside.
This was the very argument he presented at the Likud meeting that voted to reject PM Sharon's talk of a sovereign Palestinian state.
So this isn't a case of "if the czar only knew".
Netanyahu knows.
99.9% of the talking heads on TV don't know. But that's because they are part of the "retreat to '67 line will bring utopian peace" cabal.
A lot of people in policy making also don't know. Is it a question of attention span - or simply a desire to find simple solutions to big
problems?
But Netanyahu does know.
Will he sacrifice his intellectual honesty?
Here's the irony.
If it really looked like President Obama would seriously act to stop Iran from going nuclear then there might be a logic to going for a "logic hiatus" on a sovereign Palestinian state with the idea being that after Iran was stopped Israel could find ways to prevent the talks with the Palestinians from concluding with a sovereign state.
But since it doesn't look like Obama is going to actually act against Iran regardless of what Israel concedes to the Arabs, then that excuse falls by the wayside.
That the President of United States isn't going to stop Iran from getting the bomb is hardly something to celebrate.
But it shouldn't be ignored.
The failed could-have-been-a-state in Gaza is daily proof of the folly of giving the Palestinians their own country. The presence of a half a million Jews now living in the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria) and East Jerusalem makes it an impossibility. It is not clear what, if anything, could possibly convince the converted that the idea needs to be put to rest. But is there no better way to get to that day than to keep buying time and building new houses in existing settlements?
