Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: se ne accorge persino il New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?scp=1&sq=netanyahu&st=cse
Weighing Netanyahu as Peace Maker
By ETHAN BRONNER
JERUSALEM — A month ago, Aluf Benn, a senior columnist at the 
left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote an article that shocked 
many. He said he believed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader 
of the right-wing Likud party, was seriously interested in making 
concessions to the Palestinians and coming to an agreement on a 
two-state solution.
“Nothing I have ever written has caused as much controversy,” Mr. Benn 
said in a telephone interview. “Colleagues, politicians and friends all 
said, ‘How can you believe him?’ ”
After a long career supporting Israeli settlements in occupied land and 
rejecting Palestinian statehood, Mr. Netanyahu said last June that he 
accepted the two-state idea. Three weeks ago, he imposed a 10-month 
freeze on building Jewish housing in the West Bank, something no Israeli 
leader had done before. Settlers are outraged, and Mr. Netanyahu is 
facing a rebellion in his party. Together with his removal of many West 
Bank checkpoints and barriers to Palestinian movement and economic 
growth, these steps went well beyond what many ever expected of him.
Yet skepticism would be a polite way of describing the reaction of the 
Palestinians and much of the world, who view his steps as either too 
little too late or a ruse aimed at buying time to pursue his real agenda.
“Rather than make peace its No. 1 priority, Israel continues to 
prioritize settlements and the relentless colonization of occupied 
Palestinian land, rendering the two-state solution politically and 
economically unviable,” Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, 
said this week.
Still, Mr. Benn is not alone in his interpretation. There is a school of 
thought, both here and in Washington, that says Mr. Netanyahu is going 
through the same shift experienced by previous hawks who became more 
conciliatory as prime ministers — Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Ehud 
Olmert.
“As we say in Hebrew, things look different from there than they do from 
here,” observed Isaac Herzog, Israel’s welfare minister, who comes from 
the Labor party, referring to a saying that seeks to describe how 
responsibility blunts ideology. “My keen impression is that he is 
serious, perhaps more than people realize. He is saying, ‘Test me,’ and 
I am afraid the world may be missing a golden opportunity.”
Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and a longtime two-state advocate, said 
he sought to serve as Mr. Netanyahu’s sounding board and occasional 
guide. He said he believed that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to cut a deal with 
the Palestinians but was worried about his political base.
“Calling for a two-state solution was an ideological breakthrough,” Mr. 
Peres said of Mr. Netanyahu. “He wants to be the man that makes the 
peace. He is not sure about the cost of it. He wouldn’t like to find 
himself in a situation where he makes peace and discovers in the morning 
that he doesn’t have a majority for it. That’s his dilemma.”
The cost is already becoming manifest. Likud colleagues, including 
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, are calling for the settlement 
moratorium to be canceled if Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, 
does not return to talks that ended nearly a year ago when Israel 
invaded Gaza. The point of the 10-month building lull, they say, was to 
offer a gesture that would bring the Palestinian Authority back to the 
negotiations.
But the Palestinians have concluded that they can get further by 
appealing to international bodies than by returning to talks with this 
Israeli government. Mr. Abbas repeated his rejection of talks without a 
full settlement freeze at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation 
Organization’s Central Council on Tuesday. Palestinian politics are also 
deeply divided not only between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank 
but also within each group.
A senior Israeli official acknowledged that the building stoppage was 
also aimed at the Obama administration, which had demanded a settlement 
freeze last spring.
“The credibility of the United States president is important to Israel, 
so we had to respond in a positive way,” the official said, speaking on 
the condition of anonymity. “It was actually decided in the summer, but 
we waited while the Americans tried to get some response from the 
Palestinians and Arab states. When that failed, we decided to go ahead 
anyway.”
The freeze was less than what was demanded by the Americans and the 
Palestinians. It permits nearly 3,000 units to be completed, includes 
some 28 public buildings and leaves East Jerusalem out. Still, senior 
American officials say it will greatly reduce the construction as the 
months roll on — as many as 15,000 units by some estimates, including 
one by Mr. Peres. In addition, the American officials say, if the 
Palestinians return to negotiations, the freeze is likely to be extended.
For Israel’s political right, which considers settling in all of the 
historical land of Israel to be the core mission of Zionism, such a 
stoppage is clearly painful.
But aides and analysts say the prime minister’s highest priorities are 
keeping warm relations with Washington and checking Iran’s nuclear 
development and regional ambition. The United States believes that it 
will be easier to stop Iran if Israel ends its occupation of the West 
Bank. Mr. Netanyahu rejects that linkage, saying once Iran is stopped it 
will be easier to make peace with the Palestinians, since Iran supports 
anti-peace elements, like Hamas.
But as Israel faces diplomatic isolation over its war in Gaza a year 
ago, it has decided to yield to the American argument, at least in part.
Dov Weissglas, a top aide to Mr. Sharon when he was prime minister, 
recently wrote of the need to take this route in an article in Yediot 
Aharonot. He said that the settlement moratorium was not enough but that 
it was a sign of promise to be encouraged.
“No one in the world agrees to Israel’s presence in a majority of the 
Judea and Samaria territories and the continued construction there,” he 
wrote. “Israeli persistence will bring upon it diplomatic isolation, and 
this is something that Israel cannot afford. The freeze plan is an 
attempt to avoid this. It is not important in and of itself, but as a 
first sign of a process of understanding and sobriety, it is highly 
meaningful.”

 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?scp.
..
per farsi un'idea del perchè a Nahum piaccia Bronner, basta leggere
qui:
http://mondoweiss.net/?s=bronner

 By ETHAN BRONNER
Per i lettori vige il più sovrano disprezzo:  Bronner è tutt'altro che 
un giornalista imparziale, ma questo non viene premesso all'articolo.
E delle false disponibilità alla pace dei governanti israeliani sono 
costellati i 40 anni di costante crescita degli insediamenti: non ci 
crede più nessuno.
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[Megaphone]
The Foreign Ministry itself is now pushing the idea, urging supporters 
of Israel everywhere to
become cyberspace soldiers "in the new battleground for Israel's image."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378505678&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull