Netanyahu wasted a major opportunity

The Palestinians have often been accused of missing one peace opportunity after another. In his speech on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arguably missed the peace opportunity of his lifetime.

With an American president unusually determined to oppose colonies and achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in the face of growing diplomatic isolation, especially following the Israeli brutalities in Gaza, the challenges facing Israel were matched by the potential rewards.

Netanyahu chose to focus on the risks, making a rhetorical concession to the concept of a Palestinian state and moving quickly to drown the prospect of the establishment of such a state in a sea of ideological platitudes and exclusive Zionist dogma.

He excluded from his "vision for peace" the road map - the peace plan promoted by the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN.

He removed from the negotiation the core issues: the future of occupied Jerusalem and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. And to ensure that his vision will in fact indefinitely postpone the establishment of a Palestinian state, he insisted that it be demilitarised.

The speech was described as Netanyahu's response to US President Barack Obama's Cairo's speech to the Muslim world on June 4, and Netanyahu reportedly personally urged Obama to watch it. But the contrast between the two could not be more striking.

Whereas Obama quoted from the Quran to emphasise common spiritual principles between different cultures, Netanyahu emphasised separateness and exclusiveness.

While Obama emphasised the legitimacy of Palestinian aspirations, Netanyahu recognised no such rights. In fact, he summoned up exclusive Zionist claims on Palestine: "The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel," he said, "arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people".

Whereas Obama recognised the suffering of the two peoples in the land of Palestine, Netanyahu showed no such empathy.

Whereas the Obama perimeters included principles such as legitimacy and justice, the Netanyahu perimeters were based on the logic of force.

Instead of placing his faith in a just and lasting peace as the ultimate guarantor of security, he demanded that the new Palestinian state be bereft of sovereignty and condemned to live at the mercy of its over-armed neighbour.

The Netanyahu's "vision for peace" was deceptively presented as based on equality: "In this small land of ours," he said, "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".

But the equality stops at the symbolic attributes of statehood. The present gross inequalities of the parties would be maintained by the denial of sovereignty to the new Palestinian state through demilitarisation and control of Palestinian air space and border crossings.

The Palestinians would have no guarantees of security, while Israel would maintain its fearsome military might.

To further diminish the prospect of a two-state peace settlement, Netanyahu added another condition: The Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state, thus renouncing the right of return of the Palestinian refugees who lost their homes and land during the 1948 war.

Instead of reaching out to the Palestinians and the Arab world, Netanyahu was speaking to Obama and to hard-line constituents.

Pronouncing the two dreaded words (Palestinian state) within perimeters that make its realisation unrealistic, is supposed to be a concession to Obama, in return for which he is seeking an American promise to deal more firmly with what the Israeli government views as an existential threat from Iran.

At the same time, Netanyahu is anxious that his constituents be reassured that the concession to Obama will not mean an end to colony activities and will not lead to peace with the Palestinians.

The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported on May 18 that "Israel has moved ahead with a plan to build a new ... [colony] in the northern West Bank for the first time in 26 years".

Netanyahu was reported by the Israeli press to have been threatened by Welfare Minister Zevulun Orlev that if he seriously moved to forge peace with the Palestinians, Orlev's party would view the move as "crossing its red lines".

Orlev's fear of peace was put to rest. Following a meeting with the prime minister, he triumphantly declared: "I left more encouraged than when I arrived".

In responding to Obama's Cairo speech, Netanayhu had a unique opportunity to make history - he chose to ignore it. He could have offered the liberating power of justice, he chose the shackles of domination; he could have risen to the challenge of leadership; he chose the pettiness of politics; he could have looked to the future empowered by hope; he remained mired in the past and diminished by fear.

Adel Safty's new book, Might Over Right: How the Zionists Took Over Palestine, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky, and published by Garnet, England. 2009.