Thursday, June 04, 2009

Obama and Netanyahu: the 'drama' unfolding

If Bibi thought his eloquent english could some how "persuade" Obama and the US administration as to the rightness of this right wing agenda, he now clearly knows that he is mistaken.

Obama has today given a fair and optimistic speech in Cairo as to future prospects in the Middle East. He has referred to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and has reaffirmed his strong support for a two state solution and the opposition to further settlement construction. Indeed he stated that such settlement construction was not legitimate.

Netanyahu, must now be sweating. He of course still can't utter the words 'two state solution' and can never agree to a settlement freeze. Regardless of what his right wing coalition partners think, there is no evidence that he wants to change. If he genuinely did, he would kick out the the right wing crazies from his coalition and bring in Livni and Kadima.

So could we be looking at a coalition crisis after a couple of months of Israel being in office. Could Netanyahu be an ever greater disaster then his previous term. The evidence is suggesting so.

But are Israelis now waking up from their coma over the last nine years that something actually has to be done in the Palestinian area beyond talk. Could the right wing discourse that now seems to dominate Israeli society change. Who knows?

Netanyahu is in trouble and he knows it. Bereft of any serious foreign policy making vis a vis the Palestinians at all, the sensing rift between the Israeli administration and the Obama administration is imminent.

Let's only hope that this is the beginning of the collapse of the right wing coalition and their foolish and childish world view.