Netanyahu exploiting US mistake of linking Gaza war end to Palestinian statehood: Ex-Israeli foreign minister

By Beril Canakci

ISTANBUL (AA) - Since Israel started bombarding the Gaza Strip last October, it has had full support – verbal, diplomatic and military – from the US and the administration of President Joe Biden.

But despite the major political capital expended by Washington to support Israel, there are increasingly visible signs of discontent between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One of the key points of contention is the US position on establishing a Palestinian state once Israel ends its assault, a message Biden reiterated in his State of the Union address just last week.

Netanyahu has rejected this demand on multiple occasions and continues to do so with growing ferocity, insisting on full Israeli security control over Palestinian territories.

That, according to former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, is because the US made a “tactical mistake” in linking Palestinian statehood to the end of the Gaza war, one that gave Netanyahu precisely the kind of point he needed to exploit for political support.

“In the opinion polls, Netanyahu is very weak right now. When he formed the government, he had about 32 seats in parliament. Now, opinion polls give him 18 seats,” Ben-Ami said in an interview with Anadolu.

“Once Biden mentioned the Palestinian state, this is exactly what Netanyahu wanted, because the opposition to a Palestinian state gave him, suddenly, a political drive that he didn’t have. And in the Knesset of 120 members, 99 voted against the idea of a Palestinian state, so he was able to rally the nation behind him because of this tactical mistake by Biden.”

In Ben-Ami’s view, the priority in any peace efforts at the moment should be on how to end the war.

“At this stage, I think it should have focused on a solution to end the war, exchange of hostages in return for prisoners, extend the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, recover the unity of Gaza with the West Bank, and then leave open the future to negotiations,” he said.

The question of Palestinian statehood can be added to the deal after things settle down, he said.

“But don’t link it, at this stage, to the creation of a Palestinian state, because it is far-fetched,” said Ben-Ami, emphasizing that telling Israelis that the result of Oct. 7 “should be a Palestinian state 10 kilometers from Tel Aviv is not realistic.”

“To put now the Palestinian state in the middle of the debate is to give power to Netanyahu,” he said.

The rhetoric Netanyahu’s using is that the international community is pushing Israel “to be ushering in a Palestinian state” on the back of a “holocaustic massacre,” he explained.

“The nation understands it because in Israel, the idea of withdrawals is linked to conflict. The withdrawal from Lebanon led to war. The withdrawal from Gaza led to war. Of course, this is a simplistic interpretation, but the public … doesn’t have to go into the fine nuances of the situation,” said Ben-Ami.

“To the Israelis, this is not the moment to deal with the Palestinian state. And once the international community not only spoke … about imposing a Palestinian state, the Israelis rallied behind Netanyahu, because this is not what they want right now.”

- ‘Two-state solution should be addressed’

Ben-Ami, however, clarified that he does view the two-state solution as the eventual solution.

That is no surprise since the 80-year-old was among the participants of the July 2000 Camp David summit, where US President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for talks aimed at securing a breakthrough in the decades-long dispute.

“I hope the Palestinians will get a better deal from Biden. And I am saying it ironically, because I don’t believe that they can get a better deal than the one that was offered at the end of the Clinton administration,” he said.

For him, Palestinian statehood should be excluded from the discussions just “for the moment.”

“When I say excluding for the moment, I say that for tactical reasons. Not because I think that the two-state solution should not be addressed. It should be addressed. But, again, I think it is wrong to link it to the roadmap for the end of this war, simply because it allows Netanyahu to rally public opinion against the entire deal,” he said.

But for progress on that front, there needs to be a change on both sides, the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, Ben-Ami emphasized.

“Biden rightly understood that a reformed Palestinian Authority is important if we want to move to a next stage. But what he didn’t say publicly is also that a reformed Israeli policy is necessary for that,” he said.

“The problem is that Biden put the emphasis on the need for the Palestinians to put their house in order. And I think that he knows very well that also Israel needs to put its political house in order, because with the current Israeli government, Israel is going nowhere.”

He labeled Netanyahu’s administration “a government of messianic extremists,” stressing that they are “not open to any real political process with the Palestinians.”

“Netanyahu’s post-war vision is nothing. It is hot air,” he said.

- ‘Most extremist government in our history’

Building on his scathing criticism of Netanyahu and his current coalition, Ben-Ami said the Israeli prime minister is now trying to somehow secure an outcome that “he can live with.”

He believes all the talk of an Israeli ground operation in Rafah, the southern Gaza area sheltering millions of displaced Palestinians, is “a bluff.”

“It is a bluff, where Netanyahu is always trying to put pressure on Hamas and on regional stakeholders to move ahead with end-game conditions in Gaza that he can live with. That’s my sense. I don’t think that this is what Israel is going to do,” said Ben-Ami, who also served as Israel’s internal security minister from 1999 to 2001.

He stressed that Israel should, at this point, “stop the war as part of a deal where we get the exchange of prisoners and hostages.”

But the possibility of that happening with Netanyahu in power is slim, said Ben-Ami, reiterating the need for a “more centrist government that can be open to peace negotiations.”

“His coalition is not willing to engage in any kind of political process. If it engages in a political process, it disintegrates, because it will be abandoned by the extremists and the government will fall, hopefully,” he explained.

Another factor, he pointed out, is that Netanyahu “focuses mainly on the perpetuation of his personal power.”

“At a later stage, when we Israelis, God willing, will get rid of this most extremist government in our history, get rid of the Netanyahu government, we should find a way to restart negotiations with the Palestinians and the Arab states as well on a political solution,” Ben-Ami added.