Benjamin Netanyahu will arrive politically bruised in Washington Sunday.
His first fifty days in office have not been successful. The media criticized the manner in which he constructed his government and depicted it as too large, wasteful and poorly staffed. Then Netanyahu flip-flopped on the budget and now he is perceived as putting at risk Israel's relations with the United States - its chief national security asset.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that most Israelis are unhappy with Netanyahu's performance: 52% disapprove of his performance as prime minister according to a Friday Haaretz poll. Only 28% of those polled said they were satisfied with Netanyahu. Only 27% said they think Netanyahu is a better prime minister than his disgraced predecessor, Ehud Olmert.
Even more significantly, a solid majority, 57% said that Netanyahu should agree to a two-state solution when he meets with President Obama Monday. Not more than 35% disagreed. A full 40% of Likud supporters, Netanyahu's hard line support-base, said that he should say yes to Obama on the two-state solution.
Netanyahu is perceived in Israel as having no political plan, no agenda, no vision for Israel's future relations with the Palestinians. Israel's leading columnist, Israel Prize Laureate Nahum Barnea of Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote last Wednesday: "Many of our prime ministers turned their own survival into the main thing, from a certain point. This is happening to Netanyahu too soon: Only 50 days in power, and not much is left: No plan, no vision and no ambition, save the ambition to survive... Netanyahu should pull himself together. It is not only his 30 ministers who are scrutinizing him. So are friends and enemies, from Washington to Tehran." Other commentators were not much kinder. They wrote and spoke about the "old Netanyahu," the frantic, irresolute leader, who caves under pressure and unsuccessfully tries to leverage his media skills to cover up for his policy shortcomings.
The hard-line leader, who during the election campaign repeatedly reminded voters, not quite accurately, that he was first to sound the alarm bells regarding Iran's dangerous nuclear quest, is now perceived as jeopardizing Israel's cooperation with Washington on the Iranian challenge for the sake of an antiquated, petty refusal to accept Palestinian statehood.
I just returned from a visit to Israel. During two weeks there, I spoke to numerous people. I talked with politically active Israelis, with experts in strategic and military affairs as well those who know little and care even less about current affairs. Almost every one of them asked me the same question: Is Obama for real? Is he really serious about trying to achieve what our leaders simply can't do on their own? Does he have it in him? These questions were not merely informative. They reflected Israelis' yearning for change, for some external force that would break Israel's geostrategic impasse.
This yearning is enhanced by the recognition that Netanyahu personifies the status-quo, both the refusal and the inability to generate change.
Maariv's Ofer Shelah today, in a column written as a letter to Obama, lays out an unfavorable depiction of Netanyahu's political persona. Netanyahu, he writes, "is incapable - psychologically and practically, not intellectually - of incorporating this action into active vision. He is waiting for you to tell him. Always trapped in equations of forces, which he always views as hostile and always balanced in a manner that makes it almost impossible to act, he only takes action when there is no choice."
Potentially, the good news about Netanyahu's visit to Washington is that he comes here quite "pressurable." It is both because he's weak domestically and because many Israelis would actually like to see him changing his positions under pressure.
Right wing Israeli politicians once believed that they can score popularity points domestically if they demonstrate national honor by standing up to American presidents. Israelis and their leaders know better now. With hemorrhaging popularity, Netanyahu will not want to be portrayed in Israel as jeopardizing Israel's relationship with Washington.
Netanyahu wants his visit to Washington to be a success. To portray it as a successful visit, he may be willing to demonstrate flexibility. The question is whether the Obama administration would be able to follow up on the narrow openings that Netanyahu may offer on Monday and broaden those cracks to push through them a diplomatic breakthrough.
"Is Obama for real"? Israeli's are looking for change? The change Israelis want depends on who one asks and the circles one travels. I'm looking for what Obama has planned for the future! It is through the fawning over Obama that the tough questions have not been asked and his, "feet have not been put to the fire." What are his policy goals in real terms not, we're going to have change? Saying we want peace is great unless one asks how and at what price? More smoke less clarity.
You all are dreaming if you think Israel is ready to start the peace process.
Israel has already murdered, evicted, razed whole villages and left millions of hungry native palestinians without a home and has converted Gaza and the West bank in two diabolical and machiavelian concentration camps ever seen in history.
The government of the United States is being manipulated by the Zionists for so many years and they do not want peace. Israel's territorial ambitions are far beyond our imagination they not only want the whole Palestine, what they want is also Syria, Lebanon, Jordania, part of Saudi Arabia. That is why they are provoking Iran in order to start the third World war which will eventually work in their favor.
Remember the Mossad Motto "By Way of Deception thou Shalt Do War".
It pleases me that Netanyahu has been humbled, but not enough yet to make him accept the two state solution. I am an american living in the West Bank and see what life is like for the Palestinians. I hope Obama remains steadfast and convinced that a two state solution is only the beginning. Illegal settlements, misuse of resources by the Israelis, and the "wall" are additional issues, along with a host of others. America needs to wake up and not be swayed by the Zionists. Those of us who want peace have waited long enough.
Every U.S. president since 1968 has asked Israel to stop building settlements, and Israel has kept building them. There is only one way to make Israel stop: that is to withhold the $3B until there is "STOP." And no release until most settlements are vacated so that the 24,000 Palestinians made homeless by Israel since 1968 can have a place to live, and the remaining empty units can be for some returning refugees. That will begin to redress the cruelties committed by Israel and to bring peace to the Middle East.