Egypt and Syria are up in arms about Bibi’s speech, with Hosni Mubarak declaiming “Netanyahu’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace,” and the state-run Syrian newspaper Tishrin editorializing that “The Zionist government . . . according to Netanyahu’s speech last night, is willing to establish Palestinian cantons reminiscent of the black people’s cantons in South Africa when the racist regime was in power.” And members of the Palestinian Authority are shocked, shocked! by the Netanyahu vision of their future nation as a demilitarized entity that fully recognizes Israel as a Jewish state-and not only on their own behalf: an aide to PA “President” Mahmoud Abbas called it a “a blow to Obama before it’s a blow to the Palestinians and Arabs.” Which may well be, down the road, but the Obami, with odd passivity, are claiming satisfaction with the speech, and the Palestinians-so certain they were gaining traction with the new administration that they could say with relief, “Looks like we finally have a friend in the White House who is sympathetic to the Arab cause”-won’t be helped much by the disarray into which U.S. foreign policy seems to be falling, whose practitioners in any case have bigger fish to fry at the moment, as they ponder who in Iran will be the one to shake their open hand. But nor, one must hope, will the Palestinians have done their cause any good whatsoever by the not even slightly veiled threat issued from the camp of the Abbas henchmen, to wit: “It’s obvious, in the aftermath of this speech, that we are headed toward another round of violence and bloodshed.” This ought to give pause even to Obama’s amen corner on the American Jewish left, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), who recently declared that it’s settlements, not the murderous anti-Zionist dreams of Fatah and Hamas, that are the obstacles to peace between the Israelis and the Arabs.
