Netanyahu’s Aqaba failure
BARAK RAVID revealed on Sunday in Haaretz that a year ago there was a secret summit attended by then US secretary of state John Kerry and three Middle Eastern leaders – Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. At the summit Kerry outlined a regional peace initiative aimed at advancing an Israeli-Palestinian agreement with the support of the Sunni Arab states.
Kerry’s initiative included Netanyahu’s main demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state, but even under these terms Netanyahu was reluctant to support the proposal.
Ravid’s report clarified the basis on which Netanyahu, after the summit, conducted talks with Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog to possibly change the makeup of the coalition. Those contacts fell through, and Netanyahu instead took Yisrael Beiteinu into the coalition and buried for good the chances for a diplomatic move. The disappointment led the Obama administration to support UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which established the principles of a future agreement, condemned Israel’s settlement policy and caused the Netanyahu government a great deal of embarrassment.
Now it emerges that the Aqaba summit provided Netanyahu a rare opportunity to extract Israel from the diplomatic stalemate. But Netanyahu failed this leadership test. At the moment of truth he preferred the political comfort of curling up with his rightwing base, led by his rival, Naftali Bennett, to taking a political chance for the benefit of Israel’s future.
Netanyahu kept these developments a secret while throwing out vague hints about the close ties he had forged with the Sunni states in the region. Through his close associate Natan Eshel, Netanyahu blamed Herzog. But the responsibility rests with the prime minister.
Instead Netanyahu trashed the Kerry initiative and evaded fulfilling the promises he made to Kerry, Abdullah and Sissi to make gestures to the Palestinians in the territories. At the moment of truth the premier preferred his partnership with Bennett over the chance to advance the two-state solution.