Benjamin Netanyahu was far too seasoned a politician to think that the political honeymoon that followed his return to power in 2009 would last long. In light of Kadima’s reluctance to join a government of national unity, the key component in the coalition became the Labour Party and its leader, Ehud Barak.
Barak had returned to public office and to the leadership of the Labour Party on 12 June 2007. In contrast to Netanyahu, during his comeback campaign Barak had acknowledged the mistakes and problems that had characterized his brief time as Prime Minister. Six days after regaining the Labour Party leadership, Barak had been appointed Minister of Defence in the Olmert-led administration.
In the 2009 elections, the Labour Party was beaten into fourth place and won only 13 seats. Barak and the party argued that, in light of their poor performance, they would go into opposition and work to rehabilitate the party with the electorate. Netanyahu wanted Barak in the government as his Minister of Defence in order to help deal with the Iranian threat. Barak, as a result, was able to convince his party and, albeit a little reluctantly, it joined the coalition.
The Netanyahu–Barak axis became the central focus of Israeli politics for the next four years with both men working closely on the three threats of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Barak was a perfect political fit for Netanyahu. He was widely regarded in Israel as having an excellent strategic military mind, an area in which Netanyahu was not strong. More to the point, he agreed with Netanyahu that the military option towards the Iranian nuclear threat needed to be fully explored and potentially activated.
On the political front, despite his victory over Netanyahu in the 1999 direct election for Prime Minister, Barak in 2009 was a much weaker rival to Netanyahu’s leadership of the country. With his limited popularity among the electorate, and with ongoing threats to his leadership of the Labour Party, it was unlikely that Barak was going to once again challenge for the number one position in the government.
On top of this, Netanyahu, at the time, liked Barak on a personal level, and on a professional level trusted his judgement. The appointment of Barak also meant that Netanyahu did not have to give the number two portfolio in the government to a Likudnik, who might use the position to mount a challenge to his leadership of the party and the country. Together Netanyahu and Barak devised and implemented Israel’s security policies, including those directed towards the Palestinians.
President Obama recalled the dramatic offers that Barak had made to the Palestinians in 2000 at Camp David, and in 2001 in Taba, and hoped that the presence of Barak in the Netanyahu government would pull the Prime Minister towards the political centre in Israel. By 2009, Barak had largely disowned these concessions, but he was still thought to be open to making major concessions to the Palestinians in any final status negotiations.
The presence of Shimon Peres in the presidency also appeared to be a hopeful sign to the Americans. Put simply, the Americans felt that Peres could also help guide Netanyahu towards the political centre ground. Although the position of President in Israel is a largely ceremonial one, Peres was seen as a leader who would be willing to make his own views on the peace process heard to the Prime Minister.
In giving Netanyahu the task of forming the government after the 2009 election, Peres had made it clear that he wanted a centrist/unity government, which would actively pursue the peace process with the Palestinians. The Obama administration also sought Peres’s views on the domestic political lie of the land in Israel, and to clarify the direction in which Netanyahu was taking the country.
Like a cagey boxer in the ring, Netanyahu didn’t want to make the first move in the uncharted waters of the Obama era. He received the customary invitation for an Israeli Prime Minister to meet with the President at the White House on 19 May 2009.
During the course of the meeting, Obama focused his attention on Israel and Palestine, arguing that continued Jewish settlement in the West Bank was unacceptable. He wanted Netanyahu to commit his government to the two-state solution, but the Prime Minister resisted making any such declaration in Washington.
For Netanyahu the meeting with Obama was all about Iran and making the case for action against it sooner rather than later. The two differing priorities of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel did not bode well for US–Israeli relations for the subsequent years. Obama talked of hope, Netanyahu of fear. It wasn’t just their agendas that weren’t coordinated; their outlooks on the world came from opposite ends of the spectrum.
Netanyahu was pragmatic enough to understand that the main result of the meeting with President Obama was that the status quo of doing little on the Palestinian peace process was not acceptable to the President. It was widely known that Obama aimed to launch a major charm offensive on the Muslim world, in order to try to repair some of the damage caused by his predecessor’s policies in the Middle East.
The President threw down the gauntlet to Netanyahu during his important speech on 4 June 2009 at Cairo University. The speech was intended to reconnect the United States with the Muslim world, but it was his comments on Israel and Palestine that drew the greatest attention. He offered his harshest words for Israel and expressed sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. This was not the normal attitude of an American President.1
The speech set out Obama’s policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the clearest manner possible, at the centre of which was the two-state solution. Netanyahu listened to the speech intently, as it was broadcast live across the globe. The section on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict made for sober listening. In front of a wildly enthusiastic crowd, Obama said:
America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.2
The President then went on to address the problem of Holocaust denial and to warn the Arabs that this was not acceptable.
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today.
Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.3
He turned his attention to the Palestinians and here he departed from the norm by outlining his empathy for their plight and suffering. He offered more than this, however, by categorically supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state. He said:
On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighbouring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.
They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.4
The President focused on what he expected from the Palestinians and the Israelis. He reminded both sides of what they needed to do:
For peace to come, it is time for them – and all of us – to live up to our responsibilities. Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.
. . . Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities.
To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.
At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.
Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.5
The key section for Netanyahu was the issue of the Jewish settlements and Obama’s effective demand that he freeze any new settlement building. Netanyahu fully understood that such a move would not play well with his right-wing constituency.
In the final part of the section on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Obama challenged the wider Arab world to help support a potential Palestinian state and to recognize Israel. The final sentence was a direct challenge to Netanyahu to come out publicly in support of the two-state solution.
Finally, the Arab States must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab–Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel’s legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.
America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.6
The speech was a triumph for Obama and remains, arguably, one of the finest of his first term in office. It was well received in its target market, the Muslim world, and in particular among many Palestinians who saw it as evidence of the emergence of a more critical approach towards Israel emanating from Washington.
Netanyahu viewed it as a challenge, but in his pragmatic way started carefully to prepare his response to President Obama. One thing that impressed Netanyahu about Obama’s speech was its sense of drama and history. He wanted his response to reflect a similar approach and for any concessions that he was going to offer to be given the maximum publicity across the globe.
He chose to present his ideas at Bar-Ilan University, and to use an address there to make his response. His press team carefully trailed that the Prime Minister would be issuing a crucial announcement. President Peres and the head of the opposition were consulted in an apparent attempt to show a degree of national unity on the policy announcement.
Netanyahu presented his ideas on 14 June 2009 to the Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Predictably, the order of the subjects in Netanyahu’s speech was the opposite of Obama’s, reflecting their different political agendas.
Starting with Iran, Netanyahu talked about the nuclear programme as the greatest threat facing Israel. He then moved on to the challenges for Israelis caused by the global economic crisis. This was followed by a call for Arab states to help foster a stable regional peace.
Only then did he turn to the subject most people were waiting to hear about: the resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians. After his preamble about the impact of the conflict on people’s lives, including a reference to the loss of his own brother, he came to his main point – he was accepting the two-state solution to the conflict. As he put it:
I turn to you, our Palestinian neighbours, led by the Palestinian Authority, and I say: ‘Let’s begin negotiations immediately without preconditions.’
In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other. These two realities – our connection to the land of Israel, and the Palestinian population living within it – have created deep divisions in Israeli society. But the truth is that we have much more that unites us than divides us.
I have come tonight to give expression to that unity, and to the principles of peace and security on which there is broad agreement within Israeli society. These are the principles that guide our policy. This policy must take into account the international situation that has recently developed. We must recognize this reality and at the same time stand firmly on those principles essential for Israel.7
Next came his preconditions for accepting a Palestinian state. There were essentially two issues that needed to be addressed. He went on:
I have already stressed the first principle – recognition. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
The second principle is: demilitarisation. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel. Without these two conditions, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. We don’t want Kassam rockets on Petach Tikva, Grad rockets on Tel Aviv, or missiles on Ben-Gurion airport. We want peace.
In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hezbollah and Iran. On this point as well, there is wide consensus within Israel. It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarised. On a matter so critical to the existence of Israel, we must first have our security needs addressed.
Therefore, today we ask our friends in the international community, led by the United States, for what is critical to the security of Israel: Clear commitments that in a future peace agreement, the territory controlled by the Palestinians will be demilitarised: namely, without an army, without control of its airspace, and with effective security measures to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory – real monitoring, and not what occurs in Gaza today.
And obviously, the Palestinians will not be able to forge military pacts. Without this, sooner or later, these territories will become another Hamastan, and that we cannot accept.
I told President Obama when I was in Washington that if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem. And here is the substance that I now state clearly:
If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel’s security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.8
Finally, he outlined his vision for a resolution of the rest of the issues and with it a reference to the thorny issue of Jewish settlements:
Regarding the remaining important issues that will be discussed as part of the final settlement, my positions are known: Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths. The territorial question will be discussed as part of the final peace agreement. In the meantime, we have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements.
But there is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children like families elsewhere. The settlers are neither the enemies of the people nor the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public.
Unity among us is essential and will help us achieve reconciliation with our neighbours. That reconciliation must already begin by altering existing realities. I believe that a strong Palestinian economy will strengthen peace.
If the Palestinians turn toward peace – in fighting terror, in strengthening governance and the rule of law, in educating their children for peace and in stopping incitement against Israel – we will do our part in making every effort to facilitate freedom of movement and access, and to enable them to develop their economy. All of this will help us advance a peace treaty between us.9
The contents of the speech were heavily criticized by the Palestinian Authority. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, wrote in response:
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about negotiations, but left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table. Nor did he accept a Palestinian state. Instead, he announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible.10
Reaction from the White House, however, was much more favourable. Officials in the Obama administration saw Netanyahu as having caved in to American pressure over the question of the two-state solution. Officials glossed over the important point that Netanyahu had rejected Obama’s demands for a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.11
In Israel, the speech was viewed as a careful and balanced one. President Peres went further with the hyperbole. Addressing the press after Netanyahu’s speech he said, ‘True and courageous. It constituted an opening toward direct negotiations for both a regional peace and a bilateral peace between Israel and the Palestinians.’12
For Netanyahu personally, the statement represented a major shift and a pragmatic acceptance of political realities in Israel and in the Obama-led United States. He had been careful not to be seen to have given the Americans everything that President Obama had demanded in his speech in Cairo. There were important domestic reasons for holding back on some issues.
Being seen as not having surrendered entirely to the Americans was a political necessity for Netanyahu in selling the two-state solution to his right-wing constituency. Many on the right-wing in Israel still considered the acceptance of the establishment of a Palestinian state as collective national suicide by Israel.
Once Netanyahu had given the Americans what they wanted in terms of accepting the possibility of a Palestinian state they concentrated their efforts on the other item that Obama had outlined in his Cairo speech, the settlements. On this issue, Netanyahu proved a tougher nut to crack, making it clear in meetings with both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama that he would not agree to a permanent freeze on settlement construction. There were also major differences on whether or not building in Jerusalem would be included in any potential agreement.
Eventually a compromise agreement was reached, which allowed both Netanyahu and Obama to portray it as creating a meaningful opportunity to try to restart the negotiations with the Palestinians. On 25 November 2009, Netanyahu announced a halt to all new residential construction in the West Bank for a period of ten months. The agreement covered only the West Bank, not Jerusalem, and did not include public infrastructure projects such as schools and community centres.
Netanyahu managed to get the proposals passed by the Israeli Security Cabinet and made it clear to the Americans that this was as much as he was willing to concede on the settlement issue. Speaking to the assembled press, Netanyahu did his utmost to spin the agreement as best he could:
I hope that this decision will help launch meaningful negotiations to reach a historic peace agreement that would finally end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
. . . We have been told by many of our friends that once Israel takes the first meaningful steps toward peace, the Palestinians and Arab states would respond.
. . . Now is the time to begin negotiations, now is the time to move forward towards peace. Israel today has taken a far-reaching step toward peace, it is time for the Palestinians to do the same.13
He talked of the agreement being ‘a far-reaching and painful’ decision, a veiled warning to the Americans not to press him for more. Almost as soon as Netanyahu announced the moratorium, commentators speculated that it was aimed more at making peace with the Obama administration than with the Palestinians. This, by and large, was an accurate assessment.14
The Palestinians rejected the moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank as not going nearly far enough. They argued that the American failure to shift Netanyahu into accepting a permanent settlement freeze, including Jerusalem, was a bad precedent as to how far Obama would be able to pressure Netanyahu in any final status talks.
Netanyahu’s move did not break the impasse, which was characterized as being talks about potential negotiations, with the American mediators becoming ever more frustrated by both sides. By essentially keeping the Americans onside, Netanyahu was able to buy himself some more time without having to enter into meaningful negotiations that would require him to make historic compromises.
The Netanyahu–Obama relationship was initially characterized by Obama’s demands, which Netanyahu, a little reluctantly and partially, met. Netanyahu, however, was in for the long haul and part of his strategy was based on watching Obama’s wave of goodwill and optimism recede. In the meantime, with the help of a divided and at times politically self-destructive Palestinian leadership, he planned to sit tight and try to move the agenda back towards the Iranian nuclear programme.
In the meantime, he worked to ensure that the political impasse with the Palestinians did not damage Israel’s international standing and looked towards developing Israeli economic ties with markets in China and Asia. The absence of any orchestrated Palestinian violence helped create the impression to Israelis that the status quo under Netanyahu of no peace and no war was sustainable in the short- to medium-term.
Events in the Arab world, starting in December 2010, would add further motives for Netanyahu to move cautiously in the area of peacemaking. All of this would strengthen his control over Israeli politics and help him emerge as the dominant figure in the subsequent years.