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Netanyahu's consensuses
By Haaretz Editorial
Tags: Mideast Peace 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who until last month opposed the solution of two states for two peoples, has suddenly adopted this premise as his policy. If his speech at Bar-Ilan University, where he refrained from using this phrase explicitly, were not enough, at yesterday's cabinet meeting he boasted that during his first 100 days in office, he achieved "national consensus" on the idea of two states for two peoples. In his excitement, Netanyahu forgot that only belatedly did he adopt this formula, which he used to despise, in response to fierce domestic and foreign pressure.

Instead of either confessing to a years-long diplomatic mistake, through the most recent Knesset election and government formation, or alternatively merely saying out of political necessity something he probably does not believe, Netanyahu is presenting his adoption of his rivals' political position as a bold stroke that achieved domestic consensus. In reality, his remarks were meant for ears far away - U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special envoy George Mitchell, to whom Netanyahu has dispatched Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Netanyahu's repeated statements were designed to ease the Mitchell-Barak talks, especially given the dispute over whether to freeze construction in the settlements.

Netanyahu had no innovations for the two-states-for-two-peoples formula, nor was there anything new in his demand that the Palestinian state be demilitarized: That has been part of all contacts between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization since the start of the Oslo process. Israel's permanent and justified position - certainly since the days of Yitzhak Rabin's government, and in some senses even since the days of Menachem Begin's autonomy plan - has always focused on the security measures necessary to prevent any political entity in the West Bank and Gaza from maintaining an army that would endanger Israel, making military alliances with other countries or disrupting Israel's airspace, seaways and electromagnetic spectrum.
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However, this demand must be raised during negotiations, not as a precondition aimed at thwarting them. And the same is true of the other conditions the prime minister listed yesterday for a two-state solution.

Netanyahu must aspire to achieve not only national consensus within Israel, but also international consensus between two nations - Israelis and Palestinians. To this end, he must stop setting conditions and return without delay to negotiations on a final-status agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, either directly or with the mediation of Obama and his envoys.
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