This will do little to help U.S.-Israeli relations.
There is one video Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be praying never gets posted on YouTube with English subtitles. To date, the 10-minute segment has been broadcast only in Hebrew on Israel’s Channel 10. [Editor’s note: A version of the Natanyahu video with English subtitles is now available and can be viewed, together with the translated English transcript, here.]
Its contents, however, threaten to gravely embarrass not only Mr Netanyahu but also the US administration of Barack Obama.
The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu’s knowledge, nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started reinvading the main cities of the West Bank to crush Palestinian resistance in the early stages of the second intifada.
At the time Mr Netanyahu had taken a short break from politics but was soon to join Mr Sharon’s government as finance minister.
On a visit to a home in the settlement of Ofra in the West Bank to pay condolences to the family of a man killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, he makes a series of unguarded admissions about his first period as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999.
Seated on a sofa in the house, he tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process.
He dismisses the US as “easily moved to the right direction” and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel “absurd”.
He also suggests that, far from being defensive, Israel’s harsh military repression of the Palestinian uprising was designed chiefly to crush the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat so that it could be made more pliable for Israeli diktats.
Here’s the video (the transcript is below the fold).
When Ariel Sharon ordered the invasion of the West Bank, he wanted to destroy the Palestinian Authority as an entity. That’s why the Israeli troops removed all their computers and dismantled their police stations. They wanted to make it so that Arafat couldn’t govern effectively. For eight years the international community had worked to help Arafat build the tools he would need for eventual self-governance. After the invasion, almost all of that progress had been destroyed. This is one of the keys to understanding the behavior of Israel’s behavior under both Sharon and Netanyahu’s leadership.
The Second Intifada has a horrendous campaign, indefensible, in my mind, on any level. But the response to it was to destroy hope itself and leave the Palestinians with no path forward.
In this video clip, Netanyahu makes clear that he has no intention of making a peace that would be ‘a march to the 1967 borders’ or anything remotely resembling that. He also shows contempt for Americans, calling our 80% support of Israel ‘absurd.’
Transcript:
[Binyamin Netanyahu] Turn off the camera so that we can elaborate on this.
[Narrator]: A few minutes later… the camera is turned on again and Netanyahu begins to speak without quotation marks and without masks.
[Netanyahu] Now we’re beginning to understand the meaning of the slogan “Yesha Zeikan Judea, Samaria and Azza are here”. Yesha is everywhere, what is the difference?
What does Arafat want? He wants one big settlement [implies Palestinians see all of Israel as a settlement].
[Woman] Yes that’s what my daughter-in-law who came from England says [i.e. they, the Palestinians, see Tel Aviv as a settlement also].
[Natanyahu] Tel Aviv is also a settlement. From their [Palestinians] point of view, our territorial waters are also theirs. The fact is that they want us in the sea. Over there… [gestures] in the distant water.
The Arabs now are preparing for a campaign [or war] of terror, and they think that this will break us.
The main thing is, first and foremost, to hit them hard. Not just one hit… but many painful [hits], so that the price will be unbearable. The price is not unbearable, now. A total assault on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to a state of panic that everything is collapsing … fear that everything will collapse… this is what we’ll bring them to…
[Woman interrupts] But wait a minute, at that point the whole world will say “What are you occupiers”…
[Natanyahu interrupts] The world will say nothing. The world will say that we are defending ourselves.
[Woman] Aren’t you afraid of the world Bibi?
[Natanyahu] No. Especially now, with America, I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction. They [the Americans] will not bother us. Let’s suppose that they [the Americans] will say something [i.e. to us Israelis]… so they say it… [so what?] Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd! We have such [great] support there! And we say… what shall we do with this [support]?
Look, the other administration [that of Bill Clinton] was pro-Palestinian in an extreme way. I was not afraid to manoeuvre there. I did not fear confrontation with Clinton. I was not afraid to clash with the UN. As it is, I am paying the price in the international arena… So I might as well receive something of equal value in exchange.
[Child] But never mind that. We gave them things, and we can’t take them back. Because they won’t give them back to us.
[Natanyahu, gestures to let child speak] First of all, Oslo is a system [or package of things]. You’re right… I do not know what can and cannot be taken back [from the Palestinians]
[Woman] He [the child] has political opinions, believe me.
[Natanyahu] He’s right.
[Woman] He said such things to Arik Sharon that I told him: that’s not – that’s not a child’s opinion. The Oslo accords are a disaster.
[Natanyahu] Yes, I know that and you know that… but the people need to know
[Woman] Right. But I thought that the prime minister did know, and that he’d do everything so that, somehow, not to do critical things, like handing over Hebron, that…
What were the Oslo accords? The Oslo accords, which the Knesset signed, I was asked, before the elections: “Will you act according to them?” and I answered: “Yes, subject to reciprocity and limiting the withdrawals.” But how do you limit the withdrawals? I interpret the accords in such a way that will enable me to stop this rush towards the 1967 borders. [So] how do we do it?
[Narrator] The Oslo accords stated at the time that Israel would gradually hand over territories to the Palestinians in three different stages, unless the territories in question had settlements or military sites. This is where Netanyahu found a loophole.
[Natanyahu] No one said what defined military sites. Defined military sites, I said, were security zones. As far as I’m concerned, the Jordan Valley is a defined military site.
[Woman] Right [laughs]. The Beit She’an settlements. The Beit She’an Valley.
[Natanyahu] How can you tell. How can you tell? But then the question came up of just who would define what defined military sites were. I received a letter – to me and to Arafat, at the same time … which said that Israel, and only Israel, would be the one to define what those are, the location of those military sites and their size. Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give the Hebron agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: “I’m not signing.” Only when the letter came, in the course of the meeting, to me and to Arafat, only then did I sign the Hebron agreement, or rather, ratify it. It had already been signed. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accord.
[Woman interrupts] And despite that, one of our own people, excuse me, who knew it was a swindle, and that we were going to commit suicide with the Oslo accord, gives them, for example, Hebron. I never understood that.
[Natanyahu] Indeed, Hebron hurts. It hurts. It’s the thing that hurts. One of the famous rabbis, whom I very much respect, a rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, he said to me: “What would your father say?” I went to my father. Do you know a little about my father’s position?… He’s not exactly a lily-white dove, as they say. So my father heard the question and said: “Tell the rabbi that your grandfather, Rabbi Natan Milikowski, was a smart Jew. Tell him it would be better to give two per cent than to give a 100 per cent. And that’s the choice here. You gave two per cent and in that way you stopped the withdrawal, instead of 100 per cent.”
The trick is not to be there and break down. The trick is to be there and pay a minimal price.
[Woman] May you say that as prime minister.
[Natanyahu] In my estimation that will happen.
I do not believe anything “Bibi” says and after this doubly so. A disingenuous, conniving zealot. Scum, like his confederate Ariel Sharon rotting and receiving his just reward today.
Remember, he’s a moderate within his coalition/party. This has basically been the Israeli position since 1967, some might argue it’s always been their position.
This video doesn’t matter, though, BooMan, because clearly if you dislike Israel’s policies, you are an antisemite.
I oppose Israel as a Jewish state, and as of right now Hamas has agreed to recognize them as a state without its Jewish nature. I guess that puts my position as the same as Hamas. Oh noes, I’m a terrorist.
I found this interesting, though:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/07/201071913463759520.html
I welcome this. One-state solution is the only solution.
A multi-ethnic one-state solution is the only just solution, but it’s not the only solution. Bantustans, expulsion, or a combination of the two are also possible. What the right-wing pragmatists in the article are after is a combination of expulsion (of Gazans) and a single state with two classes of citizenship. That would not be a just resolution.
Most media sources at the time and most coverage since dates the start of the Second Intifada to Ariel Sharon’s provocative actions on the Temple Mount, the location of the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa mosque.
Given the fact that there was real progress toward an agreement, it is not hard to believe (and if this video turns out to be authentic, there might be evidence) that Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu conspired to torpedo the peace talks in order to gain a Likud political victory over Barak and continue their goal of absorbing the West Bank into Israel (Judea and Samaria). It also raises the question of their role in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (to put a bit of conspiracy theory there).
It is interesting how they frame the Palestinian position as wanting to eliminate Israel entirely, when there was clear movement on negotiations. It is a projection of their own agenda.
I don’t know how damaging this is going to be to Netanyahu in Israel, unless they begin to realize that like Bush lied about WMD’s, Netanyahu and Sharon intentionally scuttled the peace talks–and that scuttling has had serious consequences all over the world.
Next, you would like to know if Poppy Bush was involved in undermining Clinton’s efforts just like he was in undermining the efforts of Carter to obtain release of the hostages from Iran.
I’m with you in wondering how this plays in Israel, although I doubt it hurts Netanyahu significantly. I’d be really surprised if this ends up damaging him in the States at all, but that’s pretty obvious I guess: nobody here (with influence in the msm) is paying attention; either that, or they’re playing dumb.
I’m with you in wondering how this plays in Israel, although I doubt it hurts Netanyahu significantly. I’d be really surprised if this ends up damaging him in the States at all, but that’s pretty obvious I guess: nobody here (with influence in the msm) is paying attention; either that, or they’re playing dumb.
Shergald posted diaries about this here and here.
That’s okay. The Israeli position cannot be restated enough. It is disingenuous and will only take the Middle East into a new stage in which Americans will have to choose if they really support Apartheid, Israel’s or South Africa’s now gone version. Bishop Tutu has already opined that the Israeli version was far worse than anything the Afrikaaner government ever came up with to suppress the Black population.
But we can all believe that not a word from the White House will be heard. Still, this video will stand as a backdrop for anything the White House states regard our defense of Israel, a country which shares our values.
What values are those? Obama must know that it is now or never. Netanyahu’s dishonesty will shortly take physical form in the resumption of settlement expansion in the West Bank and further ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem and places like the Jordan Valley.
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He was pre-occupied with … Monica Lewinski
First, the time-frame of the Lewinsky affair should be taken into account. It is bounded by two events: (1) the assassination of President Clinton’s partner in the Middle East peace process, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, on Nov. 4, 1995, which opens the path for Netanyahu becoming Prime Minister in May 1996; and (2) Netanyahu’s visit to Washington in mid-January 1998–just as the Lewinsky affair was breaking in the U.S. news media. On this visit, Netanyahu publicly insulted the President by meeting with Bill Clinton’s worst enemies, televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
Netanyahu carried out this affront over the objections of both President Clinton and moderate Jewish leaders in the United States.
The question must be asked: Was the set-up of President Clinton part of the effort by the Likud fanatics in Israel, and their “Temple Mount” backers in London, to punish the President for his efforts to force through an implementation of the 1993 Oslo peace accords?
(Time) – The White House, which was shaken as much by the fact that the story had leaked as it was over the prospect of another Israeli spy, refused all comment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denounced the report as “totally baseless.”
… According to at least one well-placed Israeli intelligence source, Rafi Eitan had received a phone call from Yatom reinforcing the need to stay well clear of the United States for the foreseeable future.
… In exclusive interviews, senior Arafat aides called on the White House to dump U.S. envoy Dennis Ross for siding too much with Israel. “Palestinian officials…don’t trust him,” says Arafat spokesman Marwan Kanafani. The Administration is sticking with Ross, who was in the Middle East last week trying to restart the talks. But those negotiations could become even more difficult the more friends learn about their spying on each other.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."As part of the Neocon recommendations listed in A Clean Break, 1996, Netanyahu is to romance the religious right, and he has continued this perspective through the years, most recently with the Christian Zionists (Hagee), before whose conventions he speaks almost every year.
Well, he’s right about the 80 percent support: it’s absurd.
I think nothing is going to happen. The Israelis have a permanent get out of jail free card courtesy of the Nazis.
Our mind blanked assault drone type support for Israel is absurd.
who and what do you think this damages?
US policy towards Israel is unchangeable. The “Israel-can-do-no-wrong” caucus controls both houses of congress. But if I complain about this it makes me an antisemite.
Confirming what everyone already knew. I mean, is this even news?
Bibi needs to be taught some manners.
And, they’re inhibiting our ability to rebuild what they blew up after we helped build it the first time. Watch. They will probably blow it all up again once we finally get it done.
That actually Rennes me of a running joke at USAFA when I was there:
Q: What’s the difference between Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering?
A: Mechanical Engineers design weapon systems; Civil Engineers design targets…
This tape does not reveal anything most of us have not always known. The only change is that now we have Netanyahu very explicitly stating it.
Will this “damage the relationship between Israel and the U.S.”? I doubt it. Obama et al. will repeat the standard nonsense that “our close ties with Israel are based on shared values, and can never be broken”, and that will be that.