Weekly Commentary: Why Netanyahu kicks the Palestinian can down the road
Dr. Aaron Lerner 9 February 2018

It's not the lack of a backbone that drives Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu's ongoing policy of perpetually postponing substantive action
relating to the Palestinians.

I say "ongoing" because the explanations publicly offered for the
postponements come off like part of a Mad Libs game ("Prime Minister
Netanyahu told insiders that it is advisable to postpone _____ until after
____ because relations with the U.S. Administration are _____ ").

But there's a very cold calculation behind Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu's ongoing policy of perpetually postponing substantive action
relating to the Palestinians.

It’s the very serious assessment that the Jewish State will be in a better
situation in the future.

With every passing year our economy shifts in favor of trade with countries
that don't link business to non-business concerns thus increasing our
capacity to deal with economic sanctions that substantive action relating to
the Palestinians might yield.

Our informal relations with the Saudis and others are continually improving
just as the true interest of the Arabs states in the lot of the Palestinians
continues to erode.

We are constantly developing and implementing military technologies that
promise a better outcome in a conflict that takes places after a given suite
of technologies is implemented as compared to a clash occurring before the
technology is in place.

And finally: the demographic argument.

A central element of the policy debate is the validity of very encouraging
demographic projections that promise a solid Jewish majority even under a
so-called "one state solution."

Kicking the Palestinian can down the road allows for ultimately making
dramatic decisions based on demographic conditions rather than demographic
projections.

So is perpetually postponing substantive action relating to the Palestinians
the right policy?

My concern is that it would appear that this approach may not give enough
weight to the possibility that conditions change in ways that dramatically
limit our options - or worse.

Here's a simple exercise:

Make a list of the top geopolitical developments in the Middle East in
particular and the world in general in the last quarter century.

How many of these developments took the experts by surprise?

Almost all - if not all of them!

It comes down to this:

Would the Jewish State be in a better position to weather dramatic changes
after taking substantive action relating to the Palestinians even though
such action promises, at least in the short run, a significant negative
reaction from the world?

Or, alternatively, would perpetually postponing substantive action relating
to the Palestinians find us better equipped to face such unforeseen
developments?

That's certainly a lot to think about.

But it goes to the very heart of policy making.

And we can ill afford to ignore the need for a serious examination of the
underlying logic of the policy of perpetually postponing substantive action
relating to the Palestinians.
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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on
Arab-Israeli relations

Website: www.imra.org.il