In what I’m sure is the long-awaited return of the regular Cluesday feature, we’ll check out the speech given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” “Nutt’n Honey” Netanyahu over the weekend. Did he restart the “peace process?” Or did he declare war on the entire Arab world? Or both? Huh? Let’s take a closer look.
- Clue #1: what’s with the voice?
Bass baritone. Cheltenham High, Wyncote, Pennsylvania, class of ‘67. Panthers, bitches.
- Second clue: one state or two?
Well… two, so long as the second state has no military, no control over its borders and no control over who can and can’t live inside of them – and is riddled with more extraterritorialized enclaves than LA in Snow Crash.
So. Yeah. One, or… one and a half?
- Number three clue: growth? what growth?
Obama insists that settlement expansion must stop. Bibi says fine, no new settlements, no new land grabsfor settlements. But he’s holding on to the magic words “natural growth,” which is code for “settler babies.” And so, with nowhere to go but up… expect settler skyscrapers all over Judea and Samaria.
- Clue אַרְבַּע: no preconditions
Netanyahu proposed immediate negotiations with Arab countries, saying he’d be “willing to meet at any time, at any place, in Damascus, in Riyadh, in Beirut, and in Jerusalem as well… without preconditions.” Except… he “cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarized.” Yeah, um, okay, that. A little precondition-y. Also, they get bupkes in Jerusalem. And Palestinian refugees give up any right to return to homes they lost in the Nakba, and… oh yeah, you guys all have to agree that Israel is a Jewish state. Other than that… let’s shmooze!
Look, Bibi threaded a political needle here. He couldn’t give in too much or his coalition of rightists would collapse. And he couldn’t be too stiff-necked, or Obama would threaten to cut back his allowance. He managed to piss off pretty much everyone and satisfy no one… and he walked away.
This allows the current situation to continue on autopilot. When the wall is finished, and the settlements are complete and fully fortified, and the access roads all secure, the cantonment of the West Bank will be set in concrete. There will probably be just enough violence to keep hard-liners in power in Jerusalem, but not enough to seriously challenge the occupation or alarm any foreign governments.
A generation or more could go by before anything real is done to help the people of Palestine.
And there’s no way that’s not a win for Netanyahu.
