Even After Bush's Speech, Netanyahu Keeps his Silence
By Atila Shumpelvi, Ilan Marciano, and Efrat Weiss
Yediot Aharonot, April 14, 2004
Reactions to the historic speech: One key player, Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, released an announcement last night around midnight, in which he expressed partial satisfaction with Bush’s speech, but kept his silence in not revealing whether he is unequivocally supporting or opposing the disengagement plan.
Netanyahu spoke with prime minister Ariel Sharon, and expressed satisfaction that the U.S. president had agreed with his basic position that Israel must receive tangible rewards as a condition of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Of the three conditions that he had stated in the past, Netanyahu said that two of them, the [denial of the] right of return and the control of border crossings into the Gaza Strip, were reinforced by Bush’s position.
With regard to his third condition, completion of the separation fence around settlement blocs before the evacuation of the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said that he did not receive a clear answer. But in the same breath he emphasized that “this matter is not an issue between the U.S. and Israel, but an internal Israeli decision. This policy decision must be taken and presented to the Likud members before their vote in the referendum on the disengagement plan.” With this reaction, Netanyahu has taken an important additional step toward supporting the disengagement plan.
The defense minister, Shaul Mofaz [Likud], was even clearer, and was quick to praise Bush’s announcement: “Today we have achieved a significant milestone on the way to establishing a political and security situation that is new and better for Israel. We must praise these important and unprecedented accords, that have been reached between the prime minister and the American president, that as far as I can judge, safeguard Israel’s most important security and political interests.”
Mofaz mentioned that the understandings reached in the Sharon-Bush meeting, “guarantee the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, prevent any future return of refugees to Israel, significantly strengthen settlement in Yehudah and Shomron [i.e., the West Bank], and secure Israel’s right to defend itself and to fight against terror.” Mofaz called for the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table.
The absorption minister, Tzipi Livni [Likud], who had been one of the undecided, announced that in the wake of Bush’s speech, she would support the disengagement plan: “I was satisfied with the clear announcement of President Bush, and I see his words and in the rejection of the right of return as a personal achievement and a success in the struggle that I have carried out in the last few years in Israel and internationally, that the Palestinian state would be the only national solution for the refugees.”
Livnat: I will meet with Sharon, and then decide
The education minister, Limor Livnat [Likud], who was attending the victory party of the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team in Safra Square, said: “I heard the speech, but I have not yet seen the documents and the precise wordings. It appears that there are indeed achievements, in particular Bush’s recognition of his commitment to the Jewish state, and also on the issue of the right of return.”
Livnat added: “I need to see exactly what was said. On the whole, I am very satisfied with the process and the criticism. I have requested a meeting with the Prime Minister immediately upon his return, to see all of the documents, and to fully understand the issues such as the fence and the settlement blocs, and then I will respond.”
Minister Uzi Landau, from the leadership of “Our Likud,” which has opposed the disengagement plan, said, “Now that we have heard this paltry harvest, which contains nothing new, I call on all Likud ministers to express their positions clearly, and to join the “Our Likud” faction, in order to foil this bad plan.” Tomorrow morning the steering committee of the faction will meet in Landau’s office.
Eitam: the expulsion of Jews – a national trauma
The chairman of the National Religious Party, Minister Effi Eitam, said in reaction to the announcement of the U.S. President: “all the good intentions and word games that were heard in Washington do nothing for the dangers to our security, and for the heavy economic cost of carrying out the plan.” In his words, “the expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes will create a national trauma.”
MK [Knesset member] Shaul Yahalom (National Religious Party) attacked the Prime Minister: “There was not a single significant achievement in Bush’s speech. Sharon is leading the state of Israel to a political disaster, that is camouflaged by American illusions and silence, behind which is not a single serious promise on the matter of settlements and borders, but which contains a clear declaration of the founding of a Palestinian state.”
Justice Minister, Yosef (Tommy) Lapid [of the centrist/secularist Shinui party], said: “President Bush set a few new parameters in the relationship of the U.S. to the conflict between us and the Palestinians, on the matter of the refugees, the settlement blocs, and the building of the fence, which serve to reinforce Israel’s position, in return for Sharon’s disengagement plan. Whoever looks for reinforcement for support of the disengagement plan will find it.”
Lapid added, “Bush’s announcement will serve the state of Israel, not only with regard to the disengagement plan, but in every future diplomatic struggle with the Palestinians.”
Yur Shatran: don’t move even one bathroom from the territories
The chairman of the [far-right, pro-settler] National Union party, MK Yuri Shatran, said: “I am saddened that the Prime Minister did not succeed in obtaining a single strategic gain, even from a friendly President such as Bush. The vague words that we heard do not justify moving even a single bathroom from the land of Israel, not to mention uprooting settlements, turning the Jews into refugees in their own land, and transferring power to Arab terror organizations.”
Deputy education minister, MK Tzvi Hendel (National Union) said: “A pretty cellophane wrapper cannot hide the political package that contains no more than what Ehud Barak once received.”
He said, “Israel gained nothing but an American statement that the retreat from Gush Katif will be but the first stage of a comprehensive withdrawal from the settlements of Yesha” [Yehuda, Shomron, and Gaza, i.e. the occupied Palestinian territories].
The head of the Binyamin settlement council, and one of the settler leaders, Pinhas Wallerstein, said to Ynet: “The question is whether Binyamin Netanyahu will indeed get behind the Prime Minister, after not receiving all of the three points that he demanded.”
In Wallerstein’s words, “the Prime Minister has created a rift in Israeli society. We must put our full force as an ideological movement to convey the significance of this act to the decision makers.”
The spokesperson for the Gaza Shore regional council, Eran Shternberg, said: “Bush has repeated the same tune that Clinton already sang to Ehud Barak. The only ‘compensation’ that Sharon is bringing is 4-6 million more Arabs to a Palestinian state overlooking Ashkelon, Kfar Saba, and Netanya. Oy vavoy for this “achievement,” that denies us any moral and security right to continue to live in this land.”
Peres: Bush’s speech corresponds to the Labor Party’s position
The labor party chair, MK Shimon Peres, said: “The President’s speech fits almost exactly with the position of the Labor Party, which says that a Palestinian state must be established, with border corrections taking into account the settlements and security needs.”
“Furthermore, the speech fits the party’s position with regard to the right of return, which says that a solution to the refugee problem will be within the Palestinian state and not Israel.” Peres said that Bush has in fact accepted his position concerning a modern, democratic, and peaceful middle east, based on a strong economy.
In opposition, MK Avraham Burg (Labor) said: “Sharon has achieved an enormous public relations success in his campaign among the Likud members, and a decisive failure in bringing peace and security to the residents of the state of Israel. It would have been better for Sharon if he had just gone ten minutes to the east, to Ramallah, instead of flying ten hours to the white house. Then he could have achieved huge security benefits and a political horizon, rather than a an empty propaganda plan of disengagement.”
MK Yossi Sarid [of the left-wing Yachad party] said, “I can’t make out anything new in the American position. The Sharon-Bush accords are worth less than the understanding we had with Clinton [during the governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, when Sarid was education minister], but why did they call us traitors, while now they’re presenting this as an achievement?”
Beilin: this is the basis of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement
The chair of Yachad, Yossi Beilin, said: “Bush’s words constitute a basis for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. They reinforce the traditional American approach, which was contained in Clinton’s plan. The importance that the President attaches to an agreement between two states should be appreciated, and Israel’s main effort must be to turn the exit from Gaza into part of an overall process of reaching an agreement with the Palestinians, on the basis of the Bush vision according to the road map, and according to the Geneva plan, which realizes the hopes and the requirements of which the President spoke.”
MK Azmi Bishara [of the Arab secular nationalist party Balad] said: “The U.S. has adopted wholesale the Israeli position, and thus it makes no sense to call this a peace process. This is a process of throwing sand in our eyes. I believe the Palestinians must declare that the U.S. has removed itself from the peace process.”
“Bush has promised what is not his to those who have no right to it. The Arab world has fooled itself by agreeing to the road map, when everyone knew that Sharon did not accept it.”
Leaders of the Geneva Accords initiative also released a reaction: “Today Sharon carried out a unilateral withdrawal from the peace process that he should have held with the Palestinians and not anyone else. It is a shame that Sharon did not get any real achievements, such as those included in the Geneva agreement, that can be reached only in negotiations with the Palestinians. We call on the Prime Minister to initiate talks with the Palestinian leadership immediately upon his return, in order to coordinate the withdrawal from Gaza.”
(Translated by Daniel Breslau)