ISRAEL: THE VEIL COMES OFF.
NOOSA, Australia, 19/3/15 – Israelis voted for Benjamin Netanyahu and the truth this
month by expressing what most Jewish citizen in Israel always believed but rarely voiced: A Two-State
solution with the Palestinians never was and never will be in the interests of the Zionist nation.
Trailing badly in election poll surveys for a third term as Prime Minister ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu threw
caution and diplomacy to the wind and boldly announced there would be ‘no Two-State solution on my watch’
a startling contradiction of what he had been feeding the world media since 2009 – that he was actively
pursuing that very solution.
Netanyahu’s main opponent, Isaac Herzog of the center-left Zionist Union, was apparently
convinced the country was tired of periodic skirmishes with its Palestinian neighbors and desirous of peace.
So he announced he would work actively for a Palestinian State.
Guess who won?
Netanyahu’s Likud party not only snatched victory from the mouth of defeat but increased
its number of seats in the Knesset (parliament) as well as gaining additional seats for its ultra-orthodox
religious and its nationalistic coalition partners.
Bad news for Palestinian aspirations and the world’s jet-setting diplomats who spent
hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars in recent decades shuttling back and forth on periodic peace and
statehood missions still born before even the first of their flights took off.
Yet the Two-State ruse, the scam of scams, is sure to return to the agenda in order to pacify
international opinion, Arab sentiments and to maintain the illusion Israel really desires a fair settlement when
in reality every peace effort so far has been torpedoed by Israel the moment it even remotely threatened to
achieve some kind of progress. Of course, the blame was always laid on the Palestinians.
Hardly had the votes been counted when Netanyahu’s spin doctors already planted the idea the
Prime Minister had only meant to say for the moment the climate was such there was no immediate chance
to debate a Two-State solution.
And to show his good will towards his Arab neighbors Netanyahu would be expected to release the
300 million dollars of taxes Israel collected on behalf of the Palestinians. That money, vital to keep the West
Bank functioning, was frozen as punishment for the Palestinians joining the International War Crime Tribunal
and so making it possible for them to charge Israeli soldiers and officers with alleged war crimes committed
during bombings and incursions into Gaza and the West Bank.
Truth is so rare in politics that when it occasionally surfaces, by accident or desperation, it is often
ignored. Thus Netanyahu’s election victory was quickly attributed to his hard line posturing against a U.S.-
brokered peace deal with Iran in return for a non-nuclear bomb pledge from Teheran.
In the end one must come to the conclusion about Israel’s general election: Israelis reconfirmed a
hard line leader who will not return land to ‘the other side”, will make sure no Iranian nuclear device threatens
the Zionist State and who will retaliate with disproportionate force and ferocity against any home-made
Palestinian missiles fired towards Israel.
As for Palestinian statehood: Let’s keep talking about it. The illusion must be kept alive. Shalom.
Uli Schmetzer was foreign correspondent for Reuters and the Chicago Tribune. He covered the Middle
East and Israel periodically. He is the author of four books, all available on Amazon.com and
Kindle.