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By Dylan Matthews
Well this post sure sounds dumb now:
Likud Party Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said he would not be bound by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's commitments to evacuate West Bank settlements and withdraw from the territories.This kind of thing frustrates me to no end. Netanyahu's policy position here is based entirely on negatives. He doesn't want to divide Jerusalem, even though annexing East Jerusalem is illegal and would cripple the Palestinian economy. He doesn't want a return to 1967 borders, even though that would secure Israel recognition from the entire Arab League. But the problem isn't just that the planks are wrong. It's that they're not a policy. There's nothing in Netanyahu's litmus test that suggests what end-state he prefers. Does he think continuing the occupation indefinitely is viable? Would he support some pathetic joke of a Palestinian state with smaller-than-1967 borders and without East Jerusalem? Does he back population transfer, like Benny Elon, or exchanging settlements for Arab Israeli areas, like Avigdor Lieberman?…
He said he would invite Kadima and all the Zionist parties to join his coalition providing they agree to his guidelines - no division of Jerusalem, no return to 1967 borders.
Really, there's is no shortage of non-viable, right-wing "peace plans" out there. If Netanyahu is to bash the API/Geneva/Taba consensus, he should pick one of them and run with it, or roll his own. Otherwise, there's little in his platform but obstructionism. That might work for an opposition party, but it's just insulting for a would-be Prime Minister to run on posturing rather than policy.
