Subscribe to Print Edition | Tue., June 23, 2009 Tamuz 1, 5769 | | Israel Time: 02:32 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Focus U.S.A. Travel Week's End Anglo File
Share |
It's about time, Netanyahu
By Eldad Yaniv
Tags: benjamin netanyahu 

The last barricade has fallen, with almost unbelievable tardiness. And what a barricade it was. Almost 15 years after Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in his book "A Place under the Sun" that a Palestinian state was a danger to Zionism, President Barack Obama extracted a confession from him under duress.

The last significant right-wing leader who still believes in Greater Israel understands it is not that Obama is childish or that opposition leader Tzipi Livni is hollow. It's the logical reality: Greater Israel will remain ours only in prayers and dreams. Exactly like Safed and Sheikh Munis for the Palestinians. But this is where Netanyahu's role in making history ends, because to make peace, you have to be made of what Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat were made of.

And what is Netanyahu made of? Only Israel Bachar, Netanyahu's adviser for research and public opinion polls, knows how hard he has worked over the past few weeks, when Netanyahu, on the other side of the phone, read him the results of the polls so the "historic speech" would target the people's tastes exactly. But leadership, Bibi, is the opposite of meteorology. It means creating a breakthrough, daring to win and looking back to see the people following in one long line.
Advertisement
It will take another term or two, but it will not be long until an Israeli leader arises who tells the truth without checking first to see which way the wind is blowing.

And this, in short, is the truth: It is our generation's Zionist task and in the supreme Israeli interest to come to terms with the division of the land and to draw borders to avoid becoming South Africa or losing the Jewish majority. The settlers' pioneering-messianic mission has reached an end; this is the time to thank them nicely and send them home in peace.

If the Palestinians want it, they will get it, and if not, the Israel Defense Forces will keep the West Bank until the world vouches for our security and takes the territories as a mandate. The line drawn with a green pencil in the Rhodes armistice agreement in 1949, with the addition of large blocs, will be Israel's almost-final borders until end-of-conflict agreements are signed, if they are signed. The refugees will return to part of Mandatory Palestine, which will be transferred to Palestinian control, and holy Jerusalem will become an international city. All the rest is procedure, territory exchanges and security that the parties agreed to long ago.

Until peace or the messiah comes, whichever first, Israel will withdraw to its natural size, four and a half times larger than what was envisioned in the Peel Commission report, and one and a half times larger than the borders in the UN Partition Plan. In short, we are the ones who have made a pretty good deal.

In its natural size, Israel will begin to try to rebuild itself as an exemplary society. There was a time when we purported to be a light unto the nations. For now, it will be enough if we can be a light unto ourselves. The almost NIS 100 million we have burned in the territories will be diverted to transforming the Galilee into Tuscany and the Negev into what David Ben-Gurion dreamed it could be. We will go back to winning the Math Olympics and perhaps finally return to the World Cup.

There is poetic justice in that the man who stood on the balcony in Zion Square a decade and a half ago had to stand at Bar-Ilan University half a cigarette away from where Yitzhak Rabin's assassin Yigal Amir studied. And in his clumsy way, he admitted he had been wrong and misleading.

Therefore we have to restrain ourselves from saying, "It's about time, Netanyahu." It is enough to say "It's about time, Israel." That light seems to be glimmering, still very far away, at the end of the tunnel, even if we have to squint hard to see it.
PROMOTION: Mamilla Hotel
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Twitter is not a shield
If a real crackdown comes, it will take more than social networking to free Iran.
Why counter-protest?
Gay-lesbian synagogue in New York turns hate rally into fundraising event.
  1.   Not so fast 09:24  |  Baruch Gold 22/06/09
  2.   That`s right 16:32  |  Pablo Luis 22/06/09
  3.   gaza 17:04  |  Sterling 22/06/09
  4.   Recognizing reality 17:59  |  Giora Me`ir 22/06/09
Special Offers
Advertisement
hotel Jerusalem
David Citadel Hotel, come stay at the finest of Jerusalem hotels.
ISRAEL ARMY SURPLUS STORE
IDF insignia,Uniforms, Paladium Boots Watches, Israel Army T-shirts & Collectibles
Dead Sea Skin Care
Quality cosmetics from the Dead Sea. Coupon code HAARETZ for 12% off!
Eldan Rent a Car
Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on online reservations
Junkyard
Junk a car - get free towing nationwide and a tax-deductible receipt
More Headlines
23:14 Iran authorities ban mourning for riots victim
21:18 ANALYSIS / Twitter won't make Iran protesters bulletproof
12:09 Netanyahu: Change in Iran could bring peaceful Israel ties
20:48 Outpost Watch: Obama's future minefield - and Netanyahu's
14:17 Iran considers expelling Western diplomats
19:22 Residents of Polish town try to save 'Hitler's tree'
22:56 Updated: Iran interactive - images and Tweets from the streets
20:58 WATCH: Daily news round-up from Israel
17:59 Palestinian PM sets 2-year target for statehood
23:46 Netanyahu: I will make Gilad Shalit's return a personal responsibility
14:37 ANALYSIS / Even the CIA gets its Iran updates via Twitter
09:26 Israeli woman denied social benefits for visiting Palestinian husband
23:45 Crime boss Abutbul sentenced to 13 years behind bars
Home | TV | Print Edition | Diplomacy | Opinion | Arts & Leisure | Sports | Jewish World | Site rules |
| Israel 2009 election results | Makom: Engaging on Israel
| Search engine marketing
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
© Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved