This speech was nothing new or interesting on Netanyahu’s behalf. The man is a racist and his speech reflected this very clearly. It was aimed simply at reassuring his fellow extremists in Israel (and in the settlements) that he is not about to “sell-out” to Washington. I won’t go into his ridiculous distortions of history because the are easily refuted by anyone with the most basic appreciation for the facts.

The thrust of his speech had to do with the Palestinians recognizing Israel—not merely as a state with an inherent right to exist (as Israel had previously demanded), but as a specifically Jewish state with a right to exist. The second point of his speech had to do with his vision for a Palestinian state, namely a demilitarized enclave subordinate to Israeli security needs.

To the first point, this is fluff. Israel is unprepared to recognized the West Bank as a specifically Muslim or Palestinian entity (and it shouldn’t in any case). But Israel cannot bring itself to recognize the basic right to Palestinian existence even without silly ethnic or religious predicates. So demanding the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel as a specifically Jewish state is intended simply to undermine peace negotiations by precluding discussion over the right to return for the 1948 refugees. After all, why should Israel negotiate over refugees if the Palestinians have themselves granted legitimacy to Jewish apartheid? So on the issue of recognition, Netanyahu has only further radicalized Israel’s position.

On the second point regarding Netanyahu’s vision of a Palestinian state, we can clearly see Bibi’s racist outlook. For him, any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized and subordinated to Israeli security interests. He did not mention Israel’s intention of holding onto the Jordan Valley… probably because his position has not deviated from Sharon’s. Israel will continue to surround the remaining fragments of the West Bank by securing the Jordanian border and controlling entry and exit rights to the region. As agreed under the Oslo Accords, Israel will retain the sole rights to Palestinian airspace and will likely continue to operate the heavily militarized Jerusalem-Allenby Bridge highway (which is blocked for Palestinian use).

But all this misses the main assumption upon which his arguments are based: Israel’s needs are fundamentally superior the needs of Palestinians. As the director of ADL Abraham Foxman remarked:

“[Netanyahu's] willingness to talk about a Palestinian state as long as it is based on Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish state and is demilitarized and no threat to Israel should now provide the framework for moving the peace process forward and for easing potential tensions between the U.S. and Israel,” said Foxman. (more…)

Given the stark disparity in the balance of powers, isn’t it intuitive to demand Israel demilitarize? Of course, this is not even up for discussion. The victims of colonialism must do as their imperial masters dictate. That a future Palestinian state could pose a real threat to Israel is laughable. Israel’s military dominance is so horrifically overwhelming, there is no question of Israel’s security being seriously challenged. But you have to understand that Israeli lives are more important than those of Palestinians and Netanyahu knows this very well. It is for this reason, he knows that his demands will be well-respected in the United States and much of the international community will also sympathize with his ‘reasonable’ appeal.

So in the end, we are left with a painful problem. 1,400 slaughtered Gazans cannot compete with a single injury from rocket-fire in Sderot (let alone a death). And a single Israeli soldier weighs more heavily on the hearts of the world than 10,000+ Palestinian prisoners ineligible for civil rights and held under military law, mostly without charges brought before them. In his speech, Netanyahu is able to ignore the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, to justify the ongoing oppression in the occupied territories and to blame the victims of imperialism for their suffering because he knows that in the scheme of things, Palestinian hopes for self-determination and peace come second to Israel’s right to colonization, dispossession and brutality.