It was sort of a "Elder-statesman-schools-'man-child'-in-history" speech
June 17, 2009
First published here on ForcedExile.com
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday night was directed at the Obama administration and addressed historical errors and key omissions in President Barack Obama’s Cairo speech, including the history of the Jewish state and the reasons a Palestinian state has yet to be established, analysts say.
“Netanyahu responded to his main aversary and it is not the president of Iran. (Obama) made mistakes that were historically incorrect; Netanyahu corrected him,” Gil Hoffman, a political analyst from The Jerusalem Post, said in an interview with reporters.
Netanyahu stressed several times in his foreign policy address that he was speaking on behalf of a “consensus of Israelis,” which Hoffman says was an implication that Obama’s policies are not merely coming down against the Likud leader and right wing, but against the majority of the nation.
“He said (to Obama) ‘you’re wrong about certain things and these things have major implications,’” said Jonathan Rynhold, senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
One of the issues Netanyahu clarified was the establishment of a Jewish state. Obama said in Cairo that “the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” Netanyahu instead went back 3,500 years and pointed to Abraham and continuous Jewish history in the region as the reason Jews claimed this land as home.
“The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish people over 2,000 years - persecutions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, murders, which reached its climax in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in the history of nations,” Netanyahu said. “The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) is the birthplace of the Jewish people.”
Netanyahu also focused on oversight in Obama’s Cairo speech of why a Palestinian state has not been established despite overtures, peace talks and international agreements. Obama asserted that Palestinian suffering stems from dislocation, lack of a homeland and “the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.”
Countering that, Netanyahu said the Palestinians had a chance to create a state first in 1947 when the United Nations proposed the Partition Plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state. The plan was rejected by Arab states.
“Whoever thinks that the continued hostility to Israel is a result of our forces in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is confusing cause and effect,” he said. The prime minister outlined attacks in the 1920s, a war in 1948, continued attacks in the 1950s and another war in 1967 on the eve of the Six-Day War that occurred “nearly 50 years before a single Israeli soldier went into Judea and Samaria.”
“A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But the fact is that all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers,” Netanyahu said.
As Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, noted, “What has brought Palestinian suffering is the priority on total victory and Israel’s destruction rather than merely getting a homeland.”
Even Palestinians, while overwhelmingly disappointed with the speech, said it was critical of Obama’s Cairo address. Mustafa Barghouti said Netanyahu’s address was an indirect swipe at Obama, particularly for clarifying his mention of the Holocaust.
“We were hoping that after Obama’s speech to have some flexibility,” he said. Instead, “this speech was a plan for war and not for peace. He negated all possibilities of negotiations.”
Mark Regev, spokesman for Netanyahu, said that while the address may have seemed like a response to Obama’s Cairo University speech, it was in fact a reiteration of positions the prime minister has taken before, except for calling for a Palestinian state. “You could have said the same things last month,” he said.
Nevertheless, Rhynhold said Netanyahu particularly emphasized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state because of the historic connection to the land.
“He took Obama to task for not recognizing Jewish ‘peoplehood,’ the link of the people to the land,” he said.
The prime minister recognized the need for the Palestinian population to have a state, but his recognition, as opposed to opposition leader Tzipi Livni’s call for a “two states for two nations,” is based on the pragmatic issue of a displaced population, not on their claims to the land.
“He accepted Palestinian statehood, but not as a nation,” Rhynhold said. “He was saying ‘I recognize there’s a practical problem here, but I still think the Jewish people’s claim to the land is more significant.’”
