zionism_unsettled_scan

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II
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Binyamin Netanyahu
It is hard to find
any evidence
that recent Israeli
governments
have any
intention of
negotiating a
just peace with
Palestinians.
not over their resources."12 Israel would maintain
exclusive control over the West Bank aquifers, public
land, roads and communications, immigration, and
public order. Life without access to livelihood: such
is the legacy Begin bequeathed to Palestinians.
Begin's faU from power came quickly, tarnished as
he was by poor stewardship of the Israeli economy
and the 1982 invasion-gone-awry of Lebanon to
root out the Palestinian Liberation Organization, including
the tragic massacre of thousands of Palestinians
and Lebanese. The death of his wife in late 1982
caused Begin great grief, and a year later he resigned
from office and withdrew from public life.
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU: TOWARD A SINGLE,
JEW ISH, A PARTHEID STATE
The themes that run consistently through the
leadership of the current Prime Minister of Israel,
Binyamin"Bibi"Netanyahu (1949-) reflect a steady
hardening to the right for political Zionism. Israeli
politics are driven by actual and manipulated fear of
annihilation (another Holocaust), radical separation
from Arab Palestinians, and a clear policy of the
expansion of settlements in the occupied territories
to encircle Jerusalem and claim as much Palestinian
land as possible. It is hard to find any evidence that
recent Israeli governments have any intention of
negotiating a just peace with Palestinians.
Prime Minister Netanyahu became the standardbearer
for right-wing political Zionism after joining
the Likud party in 1993 and winning election as the
leader. In 1996 he was Likud's candidate for Prime
Minister, the first Israeli election in which Israelis
directly elected their Prime Minister. A wave of suicide
bombings in 1996 helped spread his campaign
message:"Netanyahu- making a· safe peace."13
March 2013. Netanyahu (left) poses with settler lea ders ce lebrating the official recognition of
outpost settlements in Rechilim and Nofei Nehemia . "We are facing an attack on the settlement
enterprise and against our existence in the State of Israel," Netanya hu said.16 Peace Now reports
that "during the first eight months of the new Netanyahu government, there has been a nonstop
settlement construction and approva l boom ." 17
Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister, but had to
form a coa lition with the ultra-orthodox parties in
order to govern because his party, Likud, did not wi
a majority in the Knesset.
[n September 1993 the Oslo Accords were signe,
byYasser Arafat for the Palestinian Liberation
O rganization (PLO) and Yitzhak Rabin for Israel,
giving to the newly created "Palestinian Authority"
(PA) limited autonomy in Jericho and Gaza. Netanyahu
made it clear from the start of his term as
Prime Minister that he disagreed with the Oslo
Accords and emphasized a policy of "three no's": n
withdrawal from the Golan Heights, no division of
Jerusalem which Israeli had annexed in 1967/ 14 and
no preconditions whatsoever for negotiations." lS
Under pressure from the US to make concessions c
West Bank settlements in order to keep momentun
for peace, Netanyahu signed two agreements with
Palestinians-the Hebron Protocol and the Wye Ri'
er Memorandum. His supporters felt betrayed and
accused him of trading "land for peace." As a result
of th ~~e concessions and a number of scandals in t­
personal life he lost the next election.
NETANYAHU'S BACKGROUND
A look at Netanyahu's background is helpful. He is
the son of Benzion Netanyahu (1910-2012), who
was a professor of Jewish history at Cornell University,
edi tor of Encyclopaedia Hebraica, and a senior
aide to Ze'ev jabotinsky, who has been called the
ideological father of the Likud Party. Netanyahu's
father and grandfather were leaders in the Zionist
movement and served in the Israeli military. "Leav·
ing no room for compromise, Benzion argued that
Jews inevitably faced discrimination that was racial
not religious, and that compromising with Arabs
was fuhle." 17
A specialist in the history of Jews in Spain, Benz
on thought "jewish history was a history of holocausts"
and believed Arabs would choose to respor
only to force and to exterminate jews if they had tl
chance. 1s
In the Jewish Journal, David Myers, Chair of the
History Departme nt at UCLA, writes,
We might call this the Amalekite view of Jewish
history, referring to the hated biblical foes of th,
Israelites whose existence- and even memoryshould
be blotted out (Exodus 17:14).The historian's
[Benzion's) belief that the jews have been
subjected to constant genocidal threats did not
lead him to a passive fatalism, as if there were
nothing that the jews could do in the face of
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ZIONISM UN5ETTI