The state of the settlements

Replacing Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister is an existential Israeli imperative.

By JOSHUA SOBOL
Settlements (photo credit: BAZ RATNER)
Settlements
(photo credit: BAZ RATNER)
SOON AFTER his reelection in 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his famous Bar-Ilan speech committing himself to a two-state solution with the Palestinians. But he deliberately planted in the text a stumbling block designed to thwart the very solution he had just proposed: his insistence on “public and genuine Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people” as a “basic condition for ending the conflict.”
Five months later, under intense American pressure, Netanyahu announced a 10-month freeze on building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as a goodwill gesture to help kick-start Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But during the “freeze” 1,175 units already underway were completed and 114 new units started.
As soon as the 10 months elapsed, the government opened the floodgates, issuing dozens of building tenders and permits, publishing new blueprints, launching large-scale construction in settlements deep inside the West Bank and establishing 10 new settlements in isolated areas, severely undermining the chances of a future peace agreement.
All in all, the Netanyahu government oversaw the construction of 6,867 units in the settlements, 2,622 of them in isolated settlements deep inside Palestinian territory. And over the past several weeks, it has issued tenders for a further 3,000 units.
In the six years of Netanyahu’s second and third terms, Israel invested around $1 billion in the settlements. This is money that could have been used to fight soaring housing costs and growing poverty in Israel proper. Indeed, the Netanyahu administration has become the government of the “state of the settlements,” at the expense of the State of Israel.
This is the case even though there is a fundamental conflict of interests between the two: what strengthens the settlements weakens Israel domestically and abroad. Yet Netanyahu faithfully serves the state of the settlements and uses it as a lever to undermine the two-state solution to which he ostensibly committed himself in the Bar- Ilan speech.
What is behind this schizoid phenomenon? Basically, it is a policy of verbal deceit intended to lull the international community with talk of peace, while promoting actions on the ground designed to torpedo the two-state solution.
Gradually, as chances for peace receded, Netanyahu began replacing peace talk with talk of “managing the conflict.” That is to say, conducting periodic wars like Pillar of Defense in 2012 or Protective Edge in 2014, which implicated Israel in the killing of more than 1,500 civilian non-combatants, among them 500 children. Thus, “management of the conflict” became a euphemism for laundering a cycle of horror and violence that destroys any lingering chances for peace.
To contain the impact of this recurring bloodshed and maintain a semblance of collective sanity, the government needed to fashion a collective mentality inured through ever-increasing doses of existential fear and anxiety and by placing the blame for the collapse of the peace process squarely on the other side. Hence the demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
Menachem Begin never laid down a similar condition for signing the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, and Yitzhak Rabin never demanded it of King Hussein in the 1994 peace with Jordan. Moreover, the definition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people is unacceptable to many Jews across the world, who don’t regard the Israeli government as their government or Netanyahu as their leader.
But the recognition demand served its purpose and contributed to the collapse of the peace talks.
Netanyahu bases his regime on growing anxiety at the prospect of any deal based on give and take. In the psychological sphere, the fear of give and take is related to a fear of contamination of the self. In domestic policy it manifests itself as sectorial paranoia, which leads to divisive ethnic and racial incitement, pitting various social groups against each other.
These are the predominant symptoms of the past six years of Netanyahu’s rule, both internationally and domestically. On the international stage, Netanyahu’s diplomatic paranoia has contributed to Israel’s isolation and its alienation from allies and would-be friendly states it sees as hostile; at home, the social paranoia has exacerbated tensions in a fragmented society. Six years of Netanyahu’s rule have turned Israel into a sick society, and, in the eyes of the world, into a sick country.
Israel needs a prime minster who will repair Israel’s damaged relations with the world and serve the national interest, not that of the settlers. Israel needs a prime minster who does not ground his power on fear and who does not bring Diaspora Jews into conflict with their governments.
Replacing Netanyahu at the head of government is an existential Israeli imperative. 
Playwright Joshua Sobol is the author of over 40 plays, including the award-winning ‘Ghetto’