Israel: So What is This Government Crisis? (Carlstrom)

UPDATE 1345 GMT: Laura Rozen of Politico has just posted a different view of the Israeli Prime Minister:

Netanyahu departed Washington for Israel late Wednesday night, after what some sources described as a sometimes frantic last 24 hours of decision-making after a late night meeting with Obama at the White House Tuesday night.

Netanyahu was reported to have spent part of the day Wednesday in a secure room in the Israeli Embassy making calls back to advisors in Israel, after canceling a round of interviews he had been scheduled to have with the media Wednesday morning. He also met with Sen. George Mitchell and his advisors worked with Dennis Ross and Dan Shapiro to try to come to agreement on a written document of confidence building measures Netanyahu would agree to, but could not close the gap.

“Apparently Bibi is very nervous, frantically calling his ‘seven,’ trying to figure out what to do,” one Washington Middle East hand said Wednesday. “The word I heard most today was ‘panic.’"

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Gregg Carlstrom, writing for The Majlis, tells some home truths about the supposed crisis in the Netanyahu Government and its constraint on the Israeli Prime Minister:

Yedioth Ahronoth quotes a bunch of unnamed "commentators" -- every journalist's best friend! -- who think Netanyahu's coalition government is about to collapse. So does an unnamed minister from the Labor party, who thinks Bibi will have to replace right-wing parties like Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu with Kadima:

A Labor minister said Thursday that "the government in its current state may be in danger". But a senior Likud minister disagreed, saying that it was "too soon to assume that the composition of the coalition will change".

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I think the Likud minister gets it right. Coalitions don't just collapse, after all; Netanyahu would have to make some policy decision that causes the right-wing parties to withdraw.

Obviously we're talking about a settlement freeze in East Jerusalem -- a decision Bibi has shown no desire to make. He said this week that the Palestinian insistence on an East Jerusalem freeze would delay peace talks, calling it an "illogical and unreasonable demand." And Interior Minister Eli Yishai told a Shas-affiliated newspaper that construction will continue.

"I thank God I have been given the opportunity to be the minister who approves the construction of thousands of housing units in Jerusalem," Yishai said in an interview with ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yom Yom.

Daniel Hershkowitz, the science and technology minister (from the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi party) praised Netanyahu for standing up for (what he perceives as) Israel's interests; Silvan Shalom, the deputy prime minister, also commended Netanyahu for his response to "American pressure."

Doesn't seem like there's any crisis in this coalition right now. There will be, if Netanyahu freezes construction in East Jerusalem -- but that doesn't seem likely.

Palestine-Israel Update: Heavier Clouds Over the "Proximity Talks"

On Thursday, U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell spoke with Abbas and urged him not to walk away from indirect peace negotiations with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he believes indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority will continue as planned early next week despite the crisis. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley added:

I don't think that that report that's been circulating for the last 24 hours is accurate," Crowley said. "As far as I know, we are still moving forward. We have not heard from the Palestinians that they have pulled out.

Before US Vice President Joe Biden left for Jordan, he said in Tel Aviv University the US was interested in “putting everything back on the rails.” However, the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat said that the PA would start the indirect talks “if Mitchell informs us that the Israeli plan has been canceled.

Following Biden's golden statement in Tel Aviv University, saying that the US has no other friend like Israel, in an interview with Haaretz, Shas chairman and Interior Minister Eli Yishai who authorized 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem emphasized the "unique relationship" with Washington. He said:

Our relationship with the Americans is above all else. It is an alliance that has survived complicated periods, and I had no intention of harming those ties, or to challenge the American administration, or to present obstacles to this important visit by the Vice President.

On Friday, with anticipation of renewed Jerusalem riots in response to a recent government decision to expand settlements in East Jerusalem, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered Israeli Defense Forces to impose a general closure on the West Bank, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel. The West Bank will be sealed off for 48 hours.

Israel: Masquerade of "Proximity Talks" and Settlements (Levy)

After the announcement of the planned construction of 1,600 Israeli housing units in East Jerusalem, Haaretz's Gideon Levy put the absurdity on paper by declaring there is someone to blame now: Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai:

Here's someone new to blame for everything: Eli Yishai. After all, Benjamin Netanyahu wanted it so much, Ehud Barak pressed so hard, Shimon Peres wielded so much influence - and along came the interior minister and ruined everything.

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There we were, on the brink of another historic upheaval (almost). Proximity talks with the Palestinians were in the air, peace was knocking on the door, the occupation was nearing its end - and then a Shas rogue, who knows nothing about timing and diplomacy, came and shuffled all the proximity and peace cards.



The scoundrel appeared in the midst of the smile- and hug-fest with the vice president of the United States and disrupted the celebration. Joe Biden's white-toothed smiles froze abruptly, the great friendship was about to disintegrate, and even the dinner with the prime minister and his wife was almost canceled, along with the entire "peace process." And all because of Yishai.

Well, the interior minister does deserve our modest thanks. The move was perfect. The timing, which everyone is complaining about, was brilliant. It was exactly the time to call a spade a spade. As always, we need Yishai (and occasionally Avigdor Lieberman) to expose our true face, without the mask and lies, and play the enfant terrible who shouts that the emperor has no clothes.

For the emperor indeed has no clothes. Thank you, Yishai, for exposing it. Thank you for ripping the disguise off the revelers in the great ongoing peace-process masquerade in which nobody means anything or believes in anything.

What do we want from Yishai? To know when the Jerusalem planning committee convenes? To postpone its meeting by two weeks? What for? Hadn't the prime minister announced to Israel, the world and the United States, in a move seen at the time as a great Israeli victory, that the construction freeze in the settlements does not include Jerusalem? Then why blame that lowly official, the interior minister, who implemented that policy?

What's the big deal? Another 1,600 apartments for ultra-Orthodox Jews on occupied, stolen land? Jerusalem won't ever be divided, Benjamin Netanyahu promised, in another applause-winning move. In that case, why not build in it? The Americans have agreed to all this, so they have no reason to pretend to be insulted.

The interior minister should not apologize for the "distress" he caused, but be proud of it. He is the government's true face. Who knows, perhaps thanks to him America will finally understand that nothing will happen unless it exerts real pressure on Israel.

What would we do without Yishai? Biden would have left Israel propelled by the momentum of success. Netanyahu would have boasted of a renewed close friendship. A few weeks later, the indirect talks would have started. Europe would have applauded, and Barack Obama, the president of big promises, would even have taken a moment away from dealing with his country's health-care issues to meet with Netanyahu. George Mitchell, who has already scored quite a few diplomatic feats here, would shuttle between Ramallah and Jerusalem, and maybe Netanyahu would eventually have met with Mahmoud Abbas. Face to face. Then everything would have been sorted out.

Without preconditions, certainly without preconditions, Israel would have continued to build in the territories in the meantime - not 1,600 but 16,000 new apartments. The IDF would have continued arresting, imprisoning, humiliating and starving - all under the auspices of the peace talks, of course. Jerusalem forever. The right of return is out of the question, and so is Hamas. And onward to peace!

Months would go by, the talks would "progress," there would be lots of photo ops, and every now and then a mini-crisis would erupt - all because of the Palestinians, who want neither peace nor a state. At the very end, there might be another plan with another timetable that no one intends to keep.

Everything was so ready, so ripe, until that scoundrel, Yishai, came and kicked it all into oblivion. It's a bit embarrassing, but not so terrible. After all, time heals all wounds. The Americans will soon forgive, the Palestinians will have no choice, and once again everyone will stand ceremoniously on the platform and the process will be "jump-started" again - despite everything that the sole enemy of peace around here, Eli Yishai, has done to us.