His Jerusalem

by Nahum Barnea
Yedioth Ahronot, 7/20/09, page 1

(Translation by Israel News Today - INT)

In Netanyahu's previous term as prime minister, exactly 100 days passed from the date the government was formed until his first initiated entanglement: The Western Wall tunnel affair.  One hundred days of intoxication.

In the current term, it took him 120 days.  This is definitely progress, although there were optimistic observers who expected more.  Torn between the pressures from Washington and the pressures from the right wing branch of his party and his coalition, Netanyahu chose the easy solution: Jerusalem.  Like then, in the Western Wall tunnel affair, he thinks that the magic word "Jerusalem" will rally behind him not only the right wing in Israel, but also the political center in Israel, a majority of US Jewry and a majority of the members of Congress.

In other words: He wishes to divert the clash with the Obama administration from the question of construction in the settlements, where he does not enjoy real support, either here or there, to a more convenient playing field.  This could have been brilliant if it were not so transparent.

As the song goes, each person has his own Jerusalem.  David Ben-Gurion's Jerusalem included West Jerusalem and the Old City; Ehud Barak's and Bill Clinton's Jerusalem consisted of Western Jerusalem and the Jewish neighborhoods built after the Six-Day War.  This, more or less, was also the Jerusalem of the late Ehud Olmert; Jerusalem of the Haredim extends from the Western Wall to the Haredi neighborhood, between the Sabbath Square and the Carta parking garage; the Jerusalem of Irwin Moskowitz, the bingo magnate from Long Island, is an occupied, conflict-perpetuating city.  It is the landmine that will prevent a peace agreement from being reached between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in either the near or the distant future.

Moskowitz has invested extensive funds in setting up small enclaves within Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.  The population he settles and subsidizes does not come to live, it comes to establish political facts on the ground.  Is it conceivable, Netanyahu asked yesterday, that Jews not be permitted to settle in parts of New York or Washington?  This is a hypocritical, sanctimonious statement.  A Jew who settles in the Bronx or in Queens lives in peace and happiness under the American flag.  Moskowitz's Jews will live under the shadow of the IDF's bayonets.  They are not coming as tenants; they are coming as landlords.

Moskowitz, said to me this week one of the beneficiaries of his donations, is very ill.  The question whether he will continue to invest in his settlements depends mainly on his family.  The truth is that Moskowitz is only a façade.  The only address, for better or for worse, is the Israeli government.  It turns a blind eye, winks, approves, organizes hollow shows of patriotism for the cameras.

One of Netanyahu's weak points in the past was setting priorities.  At the start of his present term he tried to correct this.  When asked what his three most important topics were, he replied: "Iran, Iran, Iran."  He knows that in order to try to block Iran, he desperately needs the US administration, and in order to make use of the administration, he has to preserve the traditional support for Israel in US public opinion.  Since the Yom Kippur War, the support of US public opinion has not been as important to Israel.

The trouble is that in his actions, he is causing the opposite.  A poll conducted by the important American polling institute Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, the institute run by Stanley Greenberg, Clinton's strategic adviser, shows that we are in serious trouble.  Only 46 percent of Americans believe now that Israel is committed to peace, 20 percent less than at the beginning of the year; 44 percent believe that the US should support Israel, versus 71 percent a year ago.  Fewer than half are willing to call themselves supporters of Israel, as opposed to two thirds last year.  These are dangerous numbers.

The blame for the deterioration can be pinned on the statements made by Obama and Clinton.  It can be pinned on the statements made by Netanyahu and Lieberman.  The question of who is to blame is less important than the question of what should be done now.  Netanyahu gave the signal yesterday: The clash is to be escalated.  In two or three weeks, when he becomes alarmed and wants to get down from his high horse, he will discover that the guys from the Likud are waiting for him below.