The Israeli prime minister faces pressure from his right-wing coalition members—especially Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party—on one side, and a push from the Trump administration to resume the peace process on the other. Yet, writes Haviv Rettig Gur, this appears to be an entirely sustainable position for Benjamin Netanyahu:
The [commonplace] idea that if Netanyahu entered a meaningful peace process he would lose the support of the far-right Jewish Home party assumes that Jewish Home has somewhere else to go. If Netanyahu falls, the alternative is not a further-right Jewish Home-led government, but one led by centrist Yesh Atid or center-left Labor. The last time this question was tested was in Netanyahu’s 2009-2013 government, when the Jewish Home happily inhabited the coalition alongside Labor, even during the unprecedented 2010 settlement freeze. . . .
At a closed-door meeting with Likud lawmakers in the Knesset last week, Netanyahu [effectively said], “stop pressuring me to expand settlements or to annex areas of the West Bank. The Americans won’t tolerate it.”
This has been the most consistent and predictable element of Netanyahu’s diplomatic strategy over the years. When faced with pressure from either side, deflect it by blaming the other. It held Netanyahu in good stead throughout the Obama years. The famous quarrels between Netanyahu and Barack Obama over Iran or the Palestinians were authentic and substantive—but also, for Netanyahu, politically useful. He could explain to right-wingers that he could not move rightward in his policy toward the Palestinians because of Obama’s pressure, and to Obama, that his coalition politics prevented him from acquiescing to Palestinian preconditions for peace talks. . . .
It isn’t all political maneuvering, of course. Some of the pressure Netanyahu is referring to is real. Donald Trump really does seem to want a peace deal. . . . And while Netanyahu is not likely to fall from power just for negotiating with the Palestinians, there is a point in the negotiations where Jewish Home will stop caring about its coalition position and start to worry about alienating its voter base and surrendering its fundamental ideological commitments. Netanyahu can negotiate, but it’s unlikely his government will be able to cede territory in the West Bank without—at the very least—a dramatic shakeup to his coalition.
Read more on Times of Israel: http://www.timesofisrael.com/caught-between-a-right-wing-base-and-a-new-peace-initiative-netanyahu-weaves-a-tangled-web/