I have written about the automatic credibility gap that Israeli leaders face in the international arena, where the world questions the Israeli commitment to peace even when it is demonstrable – and often fails to take the Palestinians to task when they flatly work against accommodation and reconciliation.
But what more can Netanyahu do to overcome this distrust?
Isn't the surging Palestinian economy proof that Bibi wants peace? Pictured: A Palestinian man sells sandwiches in Gaza City during Eid al-Adha festivities. (Photo accompanying WSJ article quoted below)
Unlike Rabin [in 1995], Netanyahu now accepts the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state. Unlike Rabin, he is issuing orders prohibiting construction throughout the Jewish West Bank. Netanyahu has crossed the Rubicon, on both ideological and practical levels, and reinvented himself as a centrist.
All this just to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table, which they still refuse to do.
In a must-read in today’s Wall Street Journal, British analyst Tom Gross explains the results of Netanyahu’s pro-peace policies, especially the recent dismantling of hundreds of roadblocks and other measures to jump-start the Palestinian economy.
(True, Keith Olbermann once called Tom “the worst person in the world” for basically supporting military action against Iran’s nuclear program – for what it’s worth, Olbermann misquoted him – but Tom is also a passionate supporter of Palestinian independence and democracy.)
The piece is worth reading in full. Here are some choice parts:
Wandering around downtown Nablus the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets…
And perhaps most importantly of all, we had driven from Jerusalem to Nablus without going through any Israeli checkpoints. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has removed them all since the Israeli security services (with the encouragement and support of President George W. Bush) were allowed, over recent years, to crush the intifada, restore security to the West Bank and set up the conditions for the economic boom that is now occurring…
The shops and restaurants were also full when I visited Hebron recently…
Life is even better in Ramallah, where it is difficult to get a table in a good restaurant. New apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships and health clubs are to be seen. In Qalqilya, another West Bank city that was previously a hotbed of terrorists and bomb-makers, the first ever strawberry crop is being harvested in time to cash in on the lucrative Christmas markets in Europe…
Palestinian economic growth so far this year—in a year dominated by economic crisis elsewhere—has been an impressive 7% according to the IMF, though Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad, himself a former World Bank and IMF employee, says it is in fact 11%, partly helped along by strong economic performances in neighboring Israel…
The truth is that an independent Palestine is now quietly being built, with Israeli assistance. So long as the Obama administration and European politicians don’t clumsily meddle as they have in the past and make unrealistic demands for the process to be completed more quickly than it can be, I am confident the outcome will be a positive one.
