Sources close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) said that Israel might have no choice but to accept United States President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” – even if it undermines Jewish national interests.
Trump’s Middle East plan, expected to be a variation of Washington’s traditional policy to partition Israel into two separate states, has been crafted for roughly two years by his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, his special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt and his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
“The US President is determined to promote his ‘Deal of the Century’ at any cost with the thought that it will win him the Nobel Prize ahead of the [American] 2020 Election,” Israeli officials told Yediot Aḥaronot following journalist Naḥum Barnea’s report that Trump plans to host a peace summit at Camp David before the September 17 Israeli elections.
Israeli officials have acknowledged that Trump’s Middle East team is frustrated with Netanyahu’s attempts to postpone the publication of their plan.
According to the report, senior figures in the Trump administration are pushing to convene the peace summit at Camp David in an effort to thwart Netanyahu’s efforts to stall. As of Wednesday, US officials have rejected reports that a summit is in the works.
Although generally skilled at stalling American efforts to divide the Land of Israel, Netanyahu plays a very dangerous game.
By professing to accept the concept of partition while stalling its implementation and creating facts on the ground to make a “two-state solution” impossible, he legitimizes a policy that would force us to betray our homeland and very identity.
It could also be that Trump is simply better at this game, having spent years positioning the Israeli and Palestinian political leaderships for a successful implementation of his plan. By diplomatically indebting Netanyahu to his administration and beating Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas into submission, Trump appears close to forcing through his plan and succeeding where his predecessors have failed.
Netanyahu and much of the Jewish right, both in Israel and the Diaspora, perceive the Trump administration as Israel’s friendliest American administration in history. They therefore argue that Jerusalem should accept Trump’s deal even if it conflicts with Israeli interests because any future US administration would demand terms less favorable.
The fundamental flaw in Netanyahu’s diplomatic approach is deeply rooted in the Revisionist Zionism he adheres to. Like its ideological father, Z’ev Jabotinsky, the prime minister’s Likud party desires to see Israel as part of the West and displays a willingness to serve America’s imperialist interests it the Middle East.
Despite all their professed pride over Hebrew independence in the Land of Israel, Jewish rightists tend to subscribe to David Ben-Gurion’s “superpower patronage” doctrine and see Israel’s survival as being dependent on Washington’s protection. This leads Netanyahu and likeminded political leaders to accept Israel’s subservience to American interests so long as they believe they can obtain sufficient sympathy from the emperor.
The question of whether or not Trump is the friendliest American president to Israel shouldn’t matter. It’s an irrelevant question within the context of Israel’s true interest of attaining independence from the United States.
Netanyahu and his associates need to think bigger. Rather than accept Trump’s plan because they believe it to be better than anything they can expect to receive from whoever occupies the White House next, they should work towards easing Israel off of its economic and military dependency to the US.
Preferable to accepting a bad deal that negates Jewish interests would be using Trump’s ostensible sympathy for Israel to create the conditions for Washington to have far less power over our leaders and policies.
Specious arguments based on a gross misunderstanding of the basic realities Israelis face every day. Ther will never be a ‘two state’ solution. Israelis, as enamored of Trump as they may be, will never accept another power dictating their realities. Netanyahu knows it and would never accede to any plan that would comprimise Israel’s security. Israel would rather go it alone than allow itself to be dictated to.