A wide-ranging interview of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg – in which the Israeli leader emphasized Jerusalem’s determination to either bilaterally or unilaterally untangle the Jewish state from Palestinians living in the West Bank – triggered a wave of social media discussion Friday morning, with journalists and analysts focusing on among other things the sources and implications of potential unilateral moves:
The Friday must-read: @JeffreyGoldberg‘s wide-ranging interview with #Israel PM Netanyahu http://t.co/Ur3YfGJ09Q
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) May 23, 2014
Netanyahu tells @JeffreyGoldberg there’s growing consensus in Israel for some unilateral steps re West Bank http://t.co/T9HPqyaoNZ
— Jodi Rudoren (@rudoren) May 23, 2014
From Netanyahu interview w/ @JeffreyGoldberg “We don’t mortgage our future to the maturation of Palestinian politics” http://t.co/RGA9JgZh1o — Eli Lake (@EliLake) May 23, 2014
The phrasing chosen by the Daily Beast’s Lake was a gesture by Netanyahu toward the Israeli stance that Palestinian intransigence – which Jerusalem insists is a function of a policy that has been conditioned by incitement to reject compromise with the Jewish state – had led to the failure of a recent U.S.-backed peace push.
Two-thirds of Americans agree with that position, holding that a unity agreement between the rival Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions had made negotiations impossible, opposite the Palestinian position that a consensus cabinet agreed to by Hamas would facilitate a comprehensive agreement.
Some have blamed Israeli settlement construction for the impasse, a suggestion Netanyahu dismissed:
“I don’t think it would work. Having tried once, I saw that it doesn’t work,” he said, referring to the time-limited settlement freeze during Obama’s first term. “The Americans said the only way Abbas is going to come into negotiations is either you release prisoners or freeze settlements: Choose. We chose [to release prisoners]. We made it very clear to the U.S. and to the Palestinians exactly how much we would build, including in Jerusalem. We built exactly what we said we would build in every one of the tranches. It wasn’t that we surprised anyone with extra construction.”