World View: With no one willing to call the belligerent PM's bluff, the fate of the Palestinians has dropped off the agenda
By Patrick Cockburn
Sunday 13 May 2012
"There has always been something stagey and contrived about Israel's blood-curdling declarations that it is going to bomb Iran, but as a strategy it has worked astonishingly well, at home and abroad. Benjamin Netanyahu has been expert at manipulating Israelis' perception of threat.......
There is another big advantage for Mr Netanyahu to his verbal confrontation with Iran. For the moment, it has sidelined as an international issue the fate of the Palestinians and Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Over the past two or three years, the rest of the world has been too busy pleading with Israel not to start a war with Iran to bother much about what is happening in Ramallah or Gaza......
The real threat to Israel is not Iran or any single state. It is rather the uncertainty engulfing the whole Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Israel's cosy relationship with dictators and monarchs has been disrupted and thrown into the air. Their successors are likely to be less accommodating. Meanwhile, the Iranian leadership, careful and devious as ever, appears to be moving towards a compromise on nuclear development that will enable it to retreat without losing face."
No comments:
Post a Comment