Wexner Foundation says it paid Barak $2m. for study on Palestinian conflict,
deadline – only the day from which Netanyahu could take action if he wished – foreign leaders warned, the Palestinians threatened, officials from Washington came and left, meetings were held and nothing moved.
July 1 came and passed and nothing happened at all.
It still could happen, Likud officials were quoted as saying; it still, might happen, US sources chimed in. But in the meantime, the whole episode seems to have been much ado about little.
This week, France, Germany, Jordan and Egypt ratcheted up their warnings not to
act, the EU foreign policy chief added his voice and Netanyahu had a conversation with his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, triggered by an op-ed Johnson penned in Yediot Aharonot against the move. But that was all external.
Domestically, there was no discernible activity on the issue. Neither the security cabinet nor the regular cabinet held meetings on it, the Foreign Ministry issued no directives to its envoys abroad on how to answer questions on the matter, the Justice Ministry did not hold any high public meetings about the move’s ramifications and there were no reports of IDF meetings to operationalize a plan to apply Israeli law. And the absence of any of that indicated that there was nothing imminent in the works.
Equally telling, Netanyahu made no public mention of the matter this week.
And what does all that indicate? It means that if Netanyahu wants to back away from the idea – perhaps convinced that the costs outweigh the