Since Netanyahu's invention of "peace for peace" (which "completely obviated" the need for territorial concessions, as Menachem Begin did when he relinquished, in exchange for peace with Egypt, an area three times larger than sovereign Israel), there has not been a patent that he first presented at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee this week, according to which "peace is made with those with whom peace can be achieved."
The prime minister compared the number of fatalities on 7 October to the number killed since the Oslo Accords as is the custom of Oslo detractors, without specifying whether Baruch Goldstein, who opened the gates of hell, was also among them. Despite being an amateur historian, he also forgot to mention that the second intifada began (quite coincidentally) one day after Likud leader and then opposition leader Ariel Sharon ascended the Temple Mount with the Likud faction and a thousand other people, in order to announce to the world that the concessions that then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to make in Jerusalem would never take place.
Netanyahu added that the main problem is not the Oslo Accords themselves (?!), but the Palestinian side that signed it. To make his message clear, he invented a new rule in the science of international relations: peace is made with those who agree, or, as quoted in the media, "If you want to reach an agreement, take those with whom you can reach agreement. Don't bring the worst."
IDF Spokesperson
By this he apparently meant to respond to the statement of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who in 1992 said what should have been obvious: "Peace is made with enemies." Netanyahu did not specify when this miraculous formula last worked (was he referring to the attempt to persuade Hebron Mayor Muhammad Ali al-Ja'bri to establish a Palestinian government with Israeli encouragement, or after the Six-Day War? Sharon's failed attempt, through Menachem Milson and Yigal Carmon, to establish the "Village Associations" in the early 80s as a partner for Israel?)
Peace is made with someone who can speak for his people, who recognizes your existence and is willing to make mutual compromises. Such was Anwar al-Sadat, the president of Egypt (who was once a staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler), and such was King Hussein (who, had he not joined the coalition with Egypt and Russia on the eve of the Six-Day War, could have spared us the debate that has been tearing us apart for 57 years about the future of the West Bank).
Netanyahu thought he was making peace with Sudan, and he is certainly not happy that the UAE, the jewel in the crown of his Abraham Accords (which are positive in themselves), is the main leader of the diplomatic attack on Israel following our just response to the events of October 7.
Netanyahu's claim that the only difference between Hamas and the PLO is that Hamas sought to destroy us immediately, while the PLO seeks to destroy us in stages, may have been true until 1988, when the PLO came to the conclusion that the right solution on its part would be the two-state solution, and its leaders adhered to this solution. He did so not out of Zionism but out of political realism, just as the pragmatic Israeli leadership reached the two-state solution. Both sides might love to wake up in the morning and see that the other is gone, but for the pragmatic patriots on both sides, that is not reason enough not to negotiate.
The PLO is the only Palestinian address Israel has, and for the terrible mistake Netanyahu made in strengthening Hamas, he will be unforgivable. The Oslo Accords are not meant to exist for 30 years but for five years; they should not and cannot continue to exist. It must be replaced, as quickly as possible, by an Israeli-Palestinian final status agreement. Netanyahu wants to convince his colleagues that, despite everything, he must remain in office because only he knows how to torpedo the establishment of a Palestinian state, but the next prime minister will have to lend a hand to its establishment in order to realize vital Israeli interests.
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