While the Obama administration champions the two-state solution, Benjamin Netanyahu speaks of everything but two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace. Next Monday, Israeli Prime Minister will put forward to the US president suggestions on self-rule or economic peace. He will also call for a peace process with the Palestinians on the basis of a new strategy that emphasizes “political, economic, and security planks concurrently.” In sum, there is no Palestinian State. He will go to Washington against the background of news published in Israeli dailies last weekend to the effect that he will authorize construction in the settlements to assimilate the “natural growth” in the population. The visit will also come on the backdrop of the electoral campaign during which he agreed with Benny Begin and Robbie Levin from the right of the Likud, i.e. the right of the Right, on rejecting a Palestinian state. In Washington, Obama will speak of the State, while Netanyahu will speak of Iran. Israel's prime minister has even urged the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, calling for the halt of the Iranian nuclear program, either through negotiations or a military strike, in return for an end to the construction in settlements. In reply, the US and the Europeans prodded Israel to pursue the peace process with the Palestinians until a State is established, thus allowing for a regional alliance against Iranian nuclear ambitions. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reiterated and elaborated throughout Europe Netanyahu's stances. He initially rejects the land-for-peace principle and wants peace for peace under the pretext that Muslims reject Israel, as he claims. He called on Europeans to emphasize, along with Israel, on the Iranian “threat.” For Iran, not the Palestinians or Israel, is the obstacle to peace, as he alleges. He sees that the entire peace process is in a “deadlock.” And while he lives in the Nokdim settlement in the West Bank, he declares on every occasion that Israel will not withdraw from the Golan Heights. If I were to translate all the above into one and a half word, I would say “no peace” with Netanyahu's government, but rather an orchestrated hindrance supported by the war gang in America and the American Likudniks whose only loyalty is to Israel at the expense of the lives of America's youth. Netanyahu made a speech via satellite at the AIPAC conference overlooking the two-state expression. In a Ma'ariv news item on the issue, the words “two states” were left outside the speech. But The Weekly Standard, the mouthpiece of the Jewish neocons in the US, said that Vice President Joe Biden invited the AIPAC audience to the two-state solution, adding, “Likewise, Netanyahu, in a video address to the conference, assured his American audience that he was committed to the two-state solution and the peace process.” He definitely did not say this, nor is he committed to the two-state solution. I expect him to thwart the peace process again in Obama's first term as he did in Clinton's second term during which he wasted three years from 1996 till 1999. He can waste four years in Obama's term if the Israeli coalition cabinet does not collapse by the end of this term. The US president, his deputy, State Secretary Hillary Clinton, and other officials in charge of the Middle East files at the National Security Council spoke of halting settlement construction, the peace process, and the two-state solution. I have noticed that the Obama administration raised another issue of concern to Israel, namely its nuclear arsenal. Perhaps it wants Israel to make concessions in return for hushing up its nuclear weapons. Rose Gottemoeller, the Assistant Secretary of State, demanded in a UN meeting on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea be parties to the treaty. I have read that Gottemoeller had co-authored in 2005 a study calling for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. I also know that Israel will not strive for the two-state solution nor will it give up its nuclear weapons which it had sought to possess before the start of the entire Iranian nuclear program. Now Ahmedinejad is giving it, with his reckless statements and hollow threats, the legitimate excuse to possess nuclear weapons. Had he not existed, Israel would have fabricated him. Indeed, he made Netanyahu say in the AIPAC conference that for the first time in his life, he saw the Jews and Arabs face a common threat, Iran. As an Arab, I see that Israel, not Iran, poses the only threat to me. Thus, I support Iran's possession of nuclear weapons, not merely the development of a peaceful program, as long as Israel possesses such weapons. http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/
