Netanyahu Will Be Remembered For Speaking Israel's Truth

Netanyahu Will Be Remembered For Speaking Israel's Truth

By Gideon Levy
Haaretz.com
March 24, 2015

I would like to say thank you to Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.

Thank you for telling the truth.

Last week you were revealed as the first Israeli prime minister
to tell the truth.

For at least 25 years most Israeli statesmen have been lying,
misleading the world, the Israelis and themselves, until Netanyahu
arose – he of all statesmen – and told the truth.

If only this truth had been told by an Israeli prime minister 25 years
ago, maybe even 50 years ago, when the occupation was born.

Still, better late than never.

The public rewarded him for this truth, and Netanyahu
was elected for a fourth term.

Netanyahu said last week that if he were to be reelected,
a Palestinian state would not be established on his watch.

Plain and simple, loud and clear.

This simple, pure truth was the case for all his predecessors as well
all the prime ministers, peace lovers and justice seekers from the
center and the left, who gave false promises.

But who thought to admit it before him?

Who had the courage to reveal the truth?

The latest of these deceivers was Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog:

His daring plan included five years of negotiations. The public
rewarded him for that.

After all, one had to deceive the Americans, bluff the Europeans
and cheat the Palestinians, fudge things for the Mideast Quartet
and lie to some Israelis.

One also had to play for time, to build settlements and get rid of
every possible Palestinian partner – Yasser Arafat, who was too
strong; President Mahmoud Abbas, who is too weak; and Hamas,
which is too extreme.

One has to play for time, so the Palestinians become more extreme
and everyone understands that there’s no one to talk to.

Now comes the man who is considered a bluffer, and only he
tells the fateful, historic truth: there will be no Palestinian
state.

Not during his term, which now seems eternal.

And not after it, because by then it will be too late.

The end of negotiations, the end of games.

No more shuttle diplomacy, Quartets, emissaries, processes,
outlines, mediators and plans.

That’s it; it will not happen.

It had no chance from the very beginning.

In Israel, there was not one single prime minister – including
the two Nobel Peace Prize laureates – who intended for one
second to let a Palestinian state be established.

But the bluff of the century was convenient for everyone.

Now Netanyahu has put an end to it.

If Israel had played its cards openly from the outset, as Netanyahu
has done now, perhaps we would be in a different place, a better
place.

If only Israel had told the truth: that it covets the occupied
territory for itself and will never give it up; that hundreds
of thousands of Jews are living there and it has no intention
of evacuating them; that it does not care about international
law, and cares nothing for what the whole world thinks; that
the Palestinians have no rights there; that Abraham our patriarch
is buried there; that Rachel our matriarch weeps there; that
Israel’s security depends on it, and that the Holocaust is at the
door.

The reasons are many and varied, and they all say one thing
now and forever, from Hebron to Jenin.

Yes to autonomy, to self-administration, to village leagues
or a Palestinian Authority.

But no to a state. Never.

If an honest leader like Netanyahu had arisen years ago,
we Israelis would have known, the Palestinians would have
known, and so would the whole world: it will not be.

Then it would have been possible to deal with other solutions,
instead of wasting time cheating, time in which hatred only grew
and blood spilled for nothing.

We could have begun long ago to think of alternatives to
the two-state solution – and there’s only one: one state.

And we could have begun debating what regime it would
have and there are only two: democracy or apartheid.

Instead, we were misled.

Now Benjamin Netanyahu has come and put an end to all this.

We must be grateful to him for this.

History will remember that he was the first Israeli prime minister
to speak the truth.



Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist, writing opinion pieces and a
weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on
the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.648122