MIDEAST: Early Jitters for Netanyahu

• Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler (jerusalem)
• Friday, February 27, 2009
• Inter Press Service

All the more so, when the number one potential coalition partner is proving to be his number one diplomatic headache. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni says adamantly she would not join a Netanyahu-led government unless 'he commits to the two-state solution' as the basis for negotiations with the Palestinians.

Livni reportedly went on to tell her Kadima party that, were Israel under Netanyahu to turn its back on this principle, it 'could set us on collision course with the new U.S. administration.'

Livni's caution is prescient even though, following Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza, the U.S. appears to have its sights fixed less on the principles of peace-making and more on the immediate need to get the conflict into manageable terms.

Reliable sources in Jerusalem confirm that Hillary Clinton wants the issue of speedy delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza to be at the forefront of her first visit to the region as Secretary of State early next week. This is the urgent consideration, the U.S. has been telling Israel. According to the sources, senior U.S. officials complained to Israeli diplomats in Washington that 'Israel is not making a sufficient effort to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza', and that 'we expect Israel to meet its commitments on this matter.' The U.S. has pledged 900 million dollars for the reconstruction of Gaza.

Currently, fewer than 200 aid trucks are permitted daily through the Israeli- controlled border crossings into Gaza. Israel refuses to allow free passage of goods unless Hamas agrees to a prisoner exchange followed by conclusion of the long-delayed Egyptian-mediated truce arrangement.

The restricted aid into Gaza is producing absurdities - as the prominent U.S. Democrat, Senator John Kerry, found earlier this week during a visit to beleaguered Strip. 'Pasta is not a weapon,' fumed the liberal Tel Aviv daily Haaretz in an editorial after it was revealed that Kerry was astonished to discover that trucks loaded with pasta were not being allowed into Gaza. Kerry was reportedly told by UN aid officials that 'Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid - only rice shipments.' Following a Kerry 'query', Israel relented and the pasta shipment was approved.

Still, Netanyahu is banking on some respite, hoping that a truce is concluded before he takes office and the row over continued border restrictions is finally resolved. But, even though Clinton and the special U.S. presidential envoy George Mitchell, who began another swing through the area on Thursday, appear to be preoccupied with the immediate reconstruction of Gaza, other warning sensors have begun sounding for Netanyahu.

On the principles of peacemaking, not only Livni is haunting him. The international community's imperative is that the two-state solution be sustained, and that's what lies behind its growing insistence that the divided Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah, engage in a major effort to resolve their differences. The latest round of reconciliation talks have just gotten under way in Cairo.

What perturbs Israel's prime minister-in-waiting is the perceived slide towards international acceptance of Hamas as a legitimate player in Israeli- Palestinian relations. The real worry for Netanyahu, who advocates the absolute exclusion of Hamas and its eventual eradication, is that Washington now concurs with the 'include Hamas' approach.

'We shall try to convince our American friends that a Palestinian unity government is a bad idea,' a senior Netanyahu spokesman and a former ambassador to Washington, Zalman Shoval, is quoted as telling The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. 'This is not something that would help the peace process; it will simply make it easier for all sorts of other players - the Europeans and the Russians - to deal with Hamas. To establish Hamas as a potential partner is not in American interest,' Shoval stressed.

Netanyahu argues that the way around Hamas and the need for commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state is to promote economic development in areas controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. His concern stems partially from the fact that the overall Middle East direction of the Obama administration has yet to be defined.

But, ringing in his ears is what Mitchell reportedly told U.S. Jewish leaders after his first visit here earlier his month: 'The future of Israeli settlements is not the only issue. You can't have economic development when you're shutting the door in the face of any diplomatic development.'

U.S. policy towards on Israel/Palestine may still be in the making. What's clear is that, already at this early stage, Washington is closing the door on any putative Netanyahu 'alternative policy'.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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