Prime Minister Netayahu has already declared his support for a two-state solution and for years has been urging the Palestinians to come back to the negotiating table. But his left-wing and centrist critics don’t buy it. They say that Bibi’s real plan is to stall indefinitely while avoiding blame for, well, stalling indefinitely. It’s like the flip side of all those who spent years dismissing President Obama’s pro-Israel declarations, saying he didn’t feel pro-Israel in his kishkes.
With his performance during his trip to Israel, even some of Obama’s critics said that while the president might be misguided and naive when it comes to the Middle East he appeared to put to bed any claim that he was hostile to the Jewish state. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Bibi skeptics start to cut him more slack. First, he went along with Obama’s efforts to end the years-long feud between Israel and Turkey. Then earlier this week he put the kibosh on Moshe Feiglin’s plan to ascend to the Temple Mount. Next came his positive response to the Arab League’s Middle East peace plan allowing for agreed-upon land swaps. And, Ha’aretz reports, in a briefing with Foreign Ministry officials Wednesday Netanyahu stressed the need for a deal with the Palestinians “that will prevent Israel from becoming a binational state, but will provide stability and security.”
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