Netanyahu: The Grime Reaper of the Oslo-Accords

The 1993 Oslo Agreements were a symbol of hope and political optimism for citizens in the Middle-East. It seemingly set the stage for two hostile entities, the Israelis and the Palestinians, who had been engaged in violent confrontation for the last fifty years, to place aside their geopolitical differences by recognizing each other's right to sovereignty. However, Likud leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu proved a threat to Oslo, when he was able to ultimately reverse this peace process during his prime-ministership, beginning in 1996. Besides the fact that he is one of the longest lasting Israeli prime minister in Israeli history, Netanyahu is a fascinating figure in Israeli history, because he is willing to challenge anyone, even if it was two U.S. presidents, who undermine his reactionary policies in the Middle East. Despite much efforts by the Clinton and Obama Administrations to engage in peace talks with the Palestinians, Netanyahu still continues to expand settlements into the West Bank with territorial ambitions of a Greater Israel. Although Netanyahu has made minor geographical concessions with the Palestinian Authority (in the Hebron and Wye Agreements), he still proceeds to undermine Palestinian right to self-determination under the umbrella of Israeli national security. Netanyahu’s meteoric rise to power is a controversial topic, but what makes him even more intriguing is his leadership in dismantling the push towards a two-state solution and actively sabotaging the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu has made little to no effort to strengthen relations with the Palestinians after Oslo, and instead has used Israeli national security concerns and biblical and historical justification as means to deny Palestinian sovereignty and expand settlements in the Occupied Territories.

To begin, Netanyahu and the rest of the Likud, Israel’s foremost right-wing party, has strongly maintained biblical and historical rights over its settlements in the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the West Bank, which have been the primary source of contention since Israel’s occupation in 1967. The Likud has made it clear not just its opposition to Oslo, but to any territorial concessions to the Palestinians. According to the Likud Charter, which was formed in 1999 (three years after Netanyahu’s election), “The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria [the West Bank] and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values” and “settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.” Considering this, a two-state peace is antithetical to the Likud’s creed and Netanyahu’s vision. In his book, A Durable Peace, Netanyahu asserts that settlements are an inexorable right to the Jewish people of Israel because “Judea and Samaria were the very heart of the land, in which virtually every event of importance in pre-exilic Jewish history took place” and Jerusalem to be the very “center of [Jewish] spiritual and political aspirations” (Netanyahu 171-2). Essentially, Netanyahu believes that in the spite of the two Palestinian refugee crises that have emerged from the 1948 and 1967 wars, the issues of settlements are mere journalistic attacks from the Left and the Arab community. Moreover, even though he correctly states that the League of Nations (and the British Mandate it had established, along with the Treaty of Versailles) had undeniably recognized Israel's right to exist, he was false in claiming that it recognized “the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria” and “to live in Hebron, Nablus, and East Jerusalem” (Netanyahu 171-72). Contrary to Netanyahu’s belief, the League of Nations Mandate made no mention of Arab residents’ forceful removal from Judea and Samaria, only calling for a “national home in that country” (“Mandate for Palestine 1920). Even though British Mandate did call for a Jewish national home in Palestine because it “cognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine,” the 1937 Peel Commission, created by the British Mandate stated otherwise:

The rest of Galilee” and the northern part of the plain of Acre are almost wholly in Arab occupation. So also is the central hill-country of old Samaria and Judea ... The towns of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, the last an outpost on the edge of the Maritime Plain, are centres of Arab nationalism.

(Mandate for Palestine 1922, Peel Commission Chapt XXXII.iii)

Furthermore, the British rescinded their own authority on the issue of Israel to the United Nations in 1947. So, when Netanyahu uses the League of Nations and the British Mandate as evidence for Israel’s claim to Judea and Samaria to be “undisputed by most of the international community ... before the establishment of Israel, ” he comes up against United Nations Resolution 181, which stated otherwise. According to this resolution, formed a year before Israel’s creation in 1948, which Netanyahu makes no reference to in his book in regards to the controversy of settlements, the Arab State will begin at:

The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan and runs due west to meet the Beisan-Jericho road and then follows the western side of that road in a north-westerly direction to the junction of the boundaries of the Sub-Districts of Beisan, Nablus, and Jenin. (UN/GA181 II.A)

Netanyahu, unwilling to recognize Palestinian self-determination, employs biased information and bypasses important UN resolutions, only presenting documents from the British Mandate and of Israel’s biblical history to justify Israel’s illegal settlements in its occupied zones.

Secondly, Netanyahu’s administration is unable to reconcile tensions with Palestinian neighbors, because of the belief that the maintenance of Israeli national security is incompatible with Palestinian sovereignty. In an interview with the Center of American Progress in November 10, 2015, Netanyahu rhetorically claims “if we were to set up a Palestinian state, how will we know it’ll become another Gaza?” ("PM Netanyahu at the Center for American Progress,” [19:19). In this interview, he is referring to when the Palestinian Authority (a.k.a al-Fatah), the moderate voice of the Palestinian people, had lost control in the Gaza Strip in 2007 to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group which was formed during the first-intifada; which occurred only two years after Israel unilaterally disengaged its forces from the region. In this case, Netanyahu poses a reasonable point for Hamas’ potential rise in the West Bank. Shortly before Yasser Arafat’s death, the Palestinian Authority had declined in popularity amongst its people. Not only was Arafat seen as authoritarian, corrupt and a Western collaborator, but his successor, Mahmoud Abbas (also known as “Abu Mazen”) had failed to win over the support of the Palestinian people and to secure the Gaza Strip against Hamas in 2007. Netanyahu has legitimate fears against Hamas, as it has been responsible for 425 terrorist attacks against Israel since 2000, and has reasonable concerns that Hamas would take over the West Bank as it did in Gaza in 2007 (“Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs”). For instance, due to growing support for Hamas among young Palestinians in the West Bank, there is a only a minuscule difference in support for the Palestinian Authority over Hamas in this region. According to a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research (PCPR), which conducts unbiased political studies and hypothetical elections throughout Palestine, even if Israel demilitarized the West Bank and elections were held there, Hamas [would] stand[] at 32% and Fatah at 36%” (Palestinian Public Opinion Poll

No - 56). Due to the marginal difference of support between Hamas and al-Fatah in the West Bank, Netanyahu reasonably believes that the continuation of Israeli occupation in the West Bank would secure the region against the threat of Hamas controlling the West Bank. Along with just Hamas, Netanyahu believes that the West Bank and the Golan serve as strategic outposts of defense for Israel’s borders. According to Netanyahu, Israeli forces must remain in the West Bank so to “retain direct control the strategic terrains so vital for its defense against terrorism and invasion from the east” (Drake 61); he makes an exception to the Golan as he claims that the “loss of the Golan as a lesser danger than whole retreat in the West Bank”

(Levin 411). Along with righteous biblical claims, Netanyahu also revolves his foreign policy decisions in the Middle East around Israel’s existential paranoia. Similar to the fears he has surrounding Iranian nuclear possession, Netanyahu strongly affirms that vacating the premises of Judea and Samaria would “immediately jeopardize [Israel’s] existence” and that retreating back to pre-1967 borders is just “not gonna happen” (Netanyahu 264; PBS 11:53). Due to the previous

wars Israel had with its Arab neighbors during the 20th century, Bibi maintains that Jordanian borders are far too “indefensible” to risk (PBS 9:05). So even when Obama unleashed an international crusade against Netanyahu for the increasing of settlement projects during his presidency in hopes of creating a two-state solution, Netanyahu has forwent any promises of eventually creating a Palestinian state. Instead he spited Obama and insisted that the dreams of a

two-state solution are “based on illusion” not “on reality” or “unshakeable facts” (PBS 8:30). With that in mind, how is it possible for a two-state solution under a leader who is heavily determined on undermining international authority and maintaining Israeli military presence in Palestine? Though Bibi has understable fears about Israel’s borders, he fails to see that possibly the continuation of Israeli occupation may be the cause for Palestinian militancy and incitement, not the other way around. In his article in the Guardian (which he had written in his jail cell), Marwan Barghouti, the leader of the first and second Palestinian intifadas, “the last day of occupation will be the first day of peace” (Barghouti, 2015). So in other words, becayse Netanyahu’s refuses to make any concessions regarding the dismantling of Israeli occupation, he is escalatng tensions with his Palestinian neighbors, obstructing any potentiality for the future of the two-state solution and making it difficult for a conclusive peace deal to happen under his leadership.

Furthermore, even though Netanyahu eventually conceded to the pressures of the Obama Administration and claimed to be in support of a “demilitarized Palestinian state” in 2009, he still heavily expanded settlements at double the rate during his years in office (“Netanyahu and Settlements”). Although Bibi claims that the catalyst of conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis is “not based on a few houses” and contorts that it is actually because Israel’s Arab neighbors refuse to recognize the existence of Israel (PM Netanyahu on the settlements, 0:32). However despite Netanyahu’s complacent rhetoric in regards to the issue of settlements, high level Palestinian negotiators beg to differ. For instance according Abu Mazen in an interview

after the 1991 Madrid Conference, , “there is no doubt that the settlements are crucial for the peace process,” and when Israel continues its developments for these illegal settlements “it suggest that [they] don’t want peace” (Price of Oslo, 39:37). Although many in Netanyahu’s camp argue that these settlements “unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel” provided to them by their victory in the Six-Day War, the Palestinians argue that they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and Resolution 242. According to these documents, the “occupying power [in this case, Israel] shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,” and call “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in [this] conflict” to ensure substantive, long-term peace to occur in this region (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, Convention IV; UNSC 242). Even though Netanyahu claimed Israel has “no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements” in 2009 order to pave the way for a two-state solution in 2009, recent statistics show that settlement-building have actually specifically risen under Netanyahu’s administration (“Netanyahu and the Settlements”). According to a journalistic study, “at the end of 1993 there

were 115,700 Israeli settlers in the occupied territories,” but now they have doubled in size, exceeding over 350,000, excluding including settlements located in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights (Palestine-Israel Journal, 2000; “Netanyahu and Settlements”). Furthermore,Netanyahu has long since backtracked on this promises and claimed “that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state … is simply giving a base for attacks to the radical Islam against Israel" (Rudoren 2015). Even though Netanyahu had presented the latter statement in front of a crowd of conservative coalition base during his campaign for re-election in 2015, it still shows that Netanyahu is not as committed to the hopes of establishing a Palestinian statehood as many previously expected in 2009. Therefore, in regards to the future two- state solution, either Netanyahu is implementing empty rhetoric to impress Obama and other liberal obstructors to his expansionist projects in the West Bank or he has an insidious objective in mind, with gradualistic goals of making a one-state solution be the only practicality in the near-future. Whatever it may be, Netanyahu is not acting upon his word, and is only implementing ways to sabotage doctrines of Oslo and an eventual reconciliation with his Palestinian adversaries.

Not only has Netanyahu flip-flopped on his views on building settlements, he actually directly ordered the expansionist policies under his years in power. For instance, immediately after the 10-month settlement moratorium, which was issued because of the insistence of the Obama Administration, had expired in the September of 2010, Netanyahu made plans to “build 3,000 new housing projects” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; including the approval of

E-1, a controversial settlement project in East Jerusalem which aims at judaizing Jerusalem by creating a physical link between the Old City and an Israeli urban development seven kilometers over, Ma'ale Adumim (Peace Now p., 2012). Not including Har Homa, a controversial settlement project Bibi had promulgated during his first term while in peace-talks with Arafat, Netanyahu, from 2009 to 2012, had invested 3.74 billion shekels (approximately over one billion US dollars) in the construction of settlements despite claiming to have :no intention of building new settlements” during this time. Additionally, Netanyahu, after his election in 2009, encouraged and incentivized settlement-building by providing subsidies and housing benefits to Israeli citizens to migrate to disputed territories, a policy move that was heavily condemned by his predecessor, Ariel Sharon (Ravid 2012). Netanyahu went as far to even place “91 settlements” on the “national-priority list,” which essentially provide certain residential areas with “location benefits” such as supplementary loans from banks, government subsidies, lower interest rates and other housing benefits (Lewis 2013). In efforts to curb settlement expansion to ensure a two-state solution become a graspable reality, the United Nations released a controversial resolution (which even warranted the first time America allowed the UN to pass a resolution that was outrightly critical of Israel). According to this document, Israeli construction of settlements undermines the future of a Palestinian state “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace” (S/RES/2334). In response, Netanyahu called this resolution to be“shameful [and] distorted” of the the contingent threats to peace between Israel and Palestine, which even prompted him to “order[] the stoppage of 30 million shekels (7.8 million USD) to fund five U.N. institution” and carefully monitor UN pressure on Israeli soil in the near-future. Moreover, Netanyahu claims that “to make [a peaceful two-state solution] achievable… you must have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace” (Shear, Rudoren 2015). Bibi is correction in his assertion, but with his increase and encouragement in settlement-building in illegal occupied territories, which directly defies international law and refuses to abide to decades of Palestinian demands, Netanyahu has effectively made the prospects of a two-state solution, and a long-term peace with his Palestinian adversaries, to seem bleak and inconceivable.

In closing, ever since Prime Benjamin Netanyahu had become prime minister in 1996 and again in 2009, he has done more to undermine and sabotage the Oslo accords and the future of a two-state solution. Throughout his years in power, he only has been direct policy decisions that harm the future of Palestinian statehood, and because of his national security concerns and biblical justifications over Judea and Samaria, has even demonstrated that he is thoroughly

against it. During his years in power, Netanyahu has done more to maintain his illegal settlements, which directly violate international law, and has essentially done nothing to contribute to peace, reconciliation, and effective diplomacy with his Palestinian adversaries. Despite his rational fears of Hamas’ popularity in the West Bank, Netanyahu has refused to lessen efforts of Israel withdrawal from the West Bank, with an end result that is only going to end in escalated Palestinian tensions. Unfortunately since Prime Netanyahu is still the Israeli Prime Minister and Donald Trump, the far-right billionaire who who centralized his campaign around fears of immigrants, including people of Islamic backgrounds, has just become the U.S. President in January of 2017, the future is a two-state solution and a Palestinian state is looking slim. From here on out only time will tell if the Palestinians and Israelis will either continually engage in violence or if they, through the pressure of the global community, will finally have an effective peace agreement.

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