Well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has spoken. His speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress broke no new ground. After saying that Israel was ready to make compromises, he proceeded to detail all the things that weren’t negotiable: no right of return, an undivided Jerusalem, a continued military presence in the Jordan valley. He referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, denied that Israel was a foreign occupier of either, and suggested that Israel had a historic claim on both. Netanyahu also called on Fatah to repudiate its recent pact with Hamas. The speech provided no evidence of any interest in a two-state solution except on terms impossible for even moderate Palestinians to accept. And it revealed the extent to which Netanyahu – now batting a thousand in his head-to-head with President Barack Obama – can defy the administration with impunity.
The U.S. Congress, of course, applauded wildly.
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.