197.5 - Defending my charge that Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar and a hypocrite

Defending my charge that Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar and a hypocrite

I also said Netanyahu is a liar and a hypocrite, and again it is the West Bank along with Gaza that provides the clear evidence.

In 2009, Benjamin NetanYahoo made a widely-noted speech in which he pledged a commitment to the two-state solution, i.e., an independent Palestinian state existing side-by-side with Israel in mutual recognition.

Not long after that, Ron Dermer, who was NetanYahoo's aide at the time of the speech and now is Israel's ambassador to the US, promised UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in writing that Israel would not only give the Palestinians a state, but one along the lines of the Green Line, the 1967 borders of Israel.

Okay, with that in mind: On March 7 of this year, NetanYahoo was quoted by his party as saying Israel will not cede any territory for the for the establishment of a Palestinian state. There would be "no withdrawals" from the West Bank and "no concessions." Likud party spokesman Elie Bennett said Netanyahu's 2009 speech was "not relevant" in the "current realities."

The next day, March 8, NetanYahoo's office issued a statement claiming he "never said such a thing," and that he still supported a two-state solution.

On March 16, on the eve of the Israeli elections, NetanYahoo himself flatly ruled out a Palestinian state, saying that if he was re-elected he would absolutely not agree to that.

Then, on March 19, having won the most seats in the Knesset with the likelihood of remaining as prime minister, NetanYahoo told MSNBC that he wants “a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution."

That's a record which surely would seem to make him a liar.

But it's even worse because every one of those pronouncements is chock full of weasel words about a Palestinian state "someday" or "in the future" or "when conditions improve" or-or-or, often along with conditions to be imposed on such a state that he knows - he has to know - are unlikely to be acceptable to the Palestinians.

Weasel words, that is, that make it possible for him to say both that he is for and against a Palestinian state while insisting he never actually changed his position, a position that makes a Palestinian state one forever pushed into the distant future.

Which would mean the March 7 statement from Likud, the one he denied the next day, had it spot on when it described NetanYahoo's "entire political biography" as "a fight against the creation of a Palestinian state."

Because that's what he's dong: hiding behind weasel words and emphasizing whichever part, "for" or "against," is politically useful at the moment ("I'm FOR a two-state solution [whisper] eventually, someday." "I'm AGAINST a two-state solution [whisper] for now.") but each of which serves the same purpose of always pushing an independent Palestinian state into some undefined future.

In other words, no Palestinian state. Ever. Israeli control of all of Judea and Samaria. Forever. Without him ever having the integrity or the guts to say so directly. Which makes him both a liar and a hypocrite.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4634773,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/world/netanyahu-comments-cast-doubt-on-stance-toward-palestinians.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/08/us-israel-palestinians-idUSKBN0M40XB20150308
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31904962
http://time.com/3751454/netanyahu-wants-two-state-solution/