T. Belman. TOI diminishes the importance of this speech.
Some Israeli politicians make history at the Herzliya Conference, the country’s premier politics and security gathering. In 2003, for instance, prime minister Ariel Sharontold the world for the first time about his plan to disengage from Gaza.
On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have also made history, in a sense — by delivering what was arguably his weakest speech in years, if not one of the weakest of his career: lackluster, meandering, repetitive, at times banal. Perhaps worst of all for a politician, it was uninspiring.
Prime ministers give many speeches and can’t be expected to reinvent the wheel every time they take the podium. But while Netanyahu’s one-hour filibuster was characteristic in that the content offered very little in the way of dramatic news, it was strikingly atypical for a usually brilliant rhetorician. Remember his speech to Congress in March? Supportive or not of his decision to lobby in DC against the president, his address was resonant, fluent, well-argued, mesmerizing.
Apparently speaking without a written text, on Tuesday evening he seemed tired and under prepared. He packaged his policy positions in largely familiar sound bites, and lacked his usual oratorical punch in delivering them.
Netanyahu started off by quoting Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who had just told him that he considers Israel a “global digital powerhouse,” and dwelt for several minutes on Israel’s high-tech prowess. After praising himself for a currency reform he initiated in the 1990s, he then waxed over his close personal friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, taking particular pride in a Hebrew tweet with which Modi had congratulated him on his election victory.
Israel is the “land of milk and honey… and gas,” Netanyahu then wisecracked, referring to the country’s natural gas reserves, and getting little more than a few polite chuckles. “We have received a great gift from nature. The gas must be extracted from the sea and brought to the Israeli economy.” Okay. Whatever.
After about 20 minutes, he finally reached his favorite topics: the dangers of radical Islam, and especially, of course, the Iranian nuclear threat, the Islamic State, and Palestinian recalcitrance. But even here, he seemed strangely distant.
Switching curiously from Hebrew to English and back, his underwhelming address even on these issues stood in stark contrast to the powerful talk former prime minister Ehud Barak had delivered right before him. Barak called for a construction freeze outside the settlement blocs and for a regional agreement with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Real leaders don’t shy away from bold steps toward peace, even if they involve grave risks, Barak thundered, with such force that some pundits began to wonder whether he was considering a comeback.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, reiterated his familiar readiness in principle for a two-state solution but in the same breath explained why that wouldn’t happen any time soon. He called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to negotiations without preconditions, but then noted that Abbas surely wouldn’t. “Why should he talk? He can get by without talking,” said the prime minister sardonically. “He can get by with an international community that blames Israel for not having talks.”
About 15 minutes and several topics later, he swung back to the peace process, vaguely. “The solution that I propose requires laborious, serious, deep negotiations. And even then we’ll have to buttress it with other safeguards.”
What about Iran? The Islamic Republic is more dangerous than the Islamic State, he asserted unsurprisingly, and it’s better not to imagine what would happen if the regime had nuclear weapons.
Displaying some self-awareness, Netanyahu acknowledged that he’s “often portrayed as the nuclear party pooper,” but said somebody needs to say what needs to be said. And so he said it, again and again.
Another point the prime minister made repeatedly on Tuesday evening was his hope for enhanced cooperation with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Indeed, he acknowledged publicly what he has been saying in private conversations for some time now: that he converses regularly with the heads of Sunni states in the region.
“I speak with quite a few of our neighbors, more than you think,” he said, but without going into specifics. Their fear of a nuclear Iran and of IS “creates a change and a potential for cooperation, perhaps even to resolve the problem that we want to resolve with the Palestinians.”
There might be an opening for peace, since “some of the Arab states silently agree with what I say,” he vouchsafed, but again without providing any details.
“They might be in a position to influence the Palestinians to adopt a more conciliatory and positive approach,” he suggested. “It’ll be hard, because all politics is theater, and international politics is also theater, and everyone is cast in a role.”
Cast in a role? If so, on Tuesday night, in the concluding address of the Herzliya conference, Netanyahu sounded unusually disengaged from his.
“The world” includes “politics” and, thus, my literary reference is on-point; the bottom-line is that he has succinctly summarized the salient features of his posture [with which I heartily concur], regardless of whether you like them.
rsklaroff Said:
apparently to your own thoughts and conclusions but NOT to the article under discussion and BB speech. On that you appear to have missed what BB told you rather than what you feel and assume.
rsklaroff Said:
the discussion is not about what you feel or concluded previously regarding yours or Shakespeare’s philosophy, the discussion is about BB speech and what he said which is corroborated by facts exhibited in his behavior. apparently when you are supposedly paying attention to what BB said your mind wanders instead to what Shakespeare said, which is completely irrelevant and the antithesis of what BB said. Your “attention” appears unfocused on the subject under discussion.
Here is what BB said again so that you may focus on his words rather than your unrelated conclusions and Shakespeare’s irrelevant quote:
bernard ross Said:
he is clearly NOT making an irrelevant generic reference to the bard but a reference to politics, international politics, if he were making shakespeares’s generic statement it would have no reason for being in his speech. therefore you missed the main point revealed.
I have paid attention, and there is nothing in any of these comments that alters what I’d concluded previously; “All the world’s a stage, with men and women merely players.” [Shakespeare]
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-the-world-s-a-stage
I think that BB justification will be that any deal he makes will be better than any other deal that was on the table that could be met. I also think that his deal will satisfy Israeli polls that have been conducted on the details of any proposed agreement. i expect no overt agreement but rather an unfolding of facts on the ground that will validate its existence. All parties prefer this MO.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
this was true and credible:
It also explains his supposedly erratic and inconsistent behavior for years.
(note the word “EVERYONE” which is included to leave no doubt as to his being in the drama and having a “role” which has been “cast”.)
NormanF Said:
the most relevant question
LOL, spot the TOI political campaign clothed in a news article.
this is exactly what obtains now under BB….
the same international community that BB allows to build in area C for the arabs while conducting a defacto freeze for the jews.
I have pointed this out in detail for years and some here called me a conspiracy theorist.
HMMMM, a peace plan that obviously includes the pals… I wonder what the details are of their agreement with BB on this issue? Note that the admission of cooperation does not admit to how long it really goes back but the footprints were all there even for a novice like me to point out.
LOL, hence the understandings I spoke of which influenced all of BB’s decisions with the PA and Gaza going back at least to POD. It is exactly as I have been saying. that BB has understandings and those understandings color and explain all his decisions. An admission that any fool should take note of. The public is slowly being given the reason for BB behavior, not obama but these understandings as I have stated prior. Although I believe that Obama is on board with it and provides some of the drama to reinforce BB right wing credentials. After all any acceptance must be led by a right wing gov to succeed.
My gosh, could it be any clearer, BB has just overtly and completely spilled the beans. The bean spilling began with the allusions of cooperation, then the overt confirmation but this statement explains the structure and MO governing the whole DRAMA today. The drama of withholding taxes, the drama of bombing empty fields, the drama of faux pal states and ICC, the drama of massaging the street, perhaps the drama of labeling and threats, the drama of obama sisi, the drama of obama BB, etc etc etc. When looking at specific detail in specific incidents and observing outcomes the drama is clear as I have said here for years.
LOL, the dunce in the corner who just does not get it at all.
🙂 the professor at the head of the class who gets it.
(sklaroff: are you paying close attention to what BB is saying here??????? Or are you reading his speech at the superficial level of a children’s fairy tale, ignoring the incredible depth of the revelation laid out for all to see and for many to miss)
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
American conservatives exalt Netanyahu as being the modern Winston Churchill, but he is closer to being the postmodern Bill Clinton: a shapeshifting manipulator whose only principle is expediency.
BB restated essential truths, no matter how boring to those professing to be in-the-know.
He lies. He claims he wants a two state solution but then he explains the Arabs are not a credible peace partner.
He has different messages for the Americans and for Israelis.
Who is the real Netanyahu?
He never said anything credible and even less, true.
Not fit to lead.