Former Israeli Diplomat Urges US Pressure for Peace with Palestinians

[In article, all links added are mine – Oui]

Netanyahu feels complete impunity because all US politicians need ‘support of Jewish community’ — former Israeli diplomat | Mondoweiss |

Colette Avital is a former consul general of Israel in New York and a former member of Knesset for Labor. On Sunday in New York, she was asked by Bradley Burston at the Haaretz New Israel Fund Conference what steps should be taken to move Israel away from its intransigence on the peace process. She said only international pressure would have that effect.

Let me start by saying something personal. For almost 40 years I was a member of the Israeli foreign service and not only my job but my passion was to build support for the state of Israel in every single shape or form, whether by convincing journalists, politicians… trying to influence people how to vote at the United Nations. That was what I did.

Today I am coming here to say that without foreign intervention, without pressure on Israel, nothing will move. It certainly is not easy for me to have made that change. And that change is necessary, it has been necessary to me. I love the country, I am Zionist, but I do not approve of the policies. So there is a difference between supporting Israel as a country and objecting to its policies. And it’s in the spirit that I would like to say what I think should be done.

And what I think should be done is to try to get through the bubble in which the Israelis live. It is not only Netanyahu or [Naftali] Bennett or [Uri] Ariel who are the drivers. For that you need the public. And I would say the public has swayed very much to the right. It is living in a kind of bubble where everything is possible.

…
She emphasized that the pressure could not only be on the Israeli government:

I believe that without an international intervention, without putting some form
of pressure, not only on the government, but on the people… that is a necessity.

Avital’s message about Netanyahu’s impunity is one that many critics of US foreign policy have tried to make, from Walt and Mearsheimer to MJ Rosenberg to Stephen Sniegoski, even Tom Friedman, when he said that the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby; and that analysis has been redlined. It has been called anti-Semitic.

She is plainly talking about money, the Adelson primary that is taking place in the Republican theory and the Saban clinch that Hillary Clinton is performing. The Israel lobby is (sadly) a theory of Jewish influence. Netanyahu shares it.

The curious incident of the flag at the Haaretz conference