Damaging video released
By
Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
24 July 2010
Jonathan Cook considers the significance of a video that has surfaced showing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu boasting about his ability to manipulate the United States and his success in destroying the Oslo accords with the Palestinians.
There is one video Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be praying never gets posted on YouTube with English subtitles. To date, the 10-minute segment has been broadcast only in Hebrew on Israel’s Channel 10.
[Editor’s note: A version of the Natanyahu video with English subtitles is now available and can be viewed, together with the translated English transcript, here.]
Its contents, however, threaten to gravely embarrass not only Mr Netanyahu but also the US administration of Barack Obama.
The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu’s knowledge, nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started reinvading the main cities of the West Bank to crush Palestinian resistance in the early stages of the second
intifada.
| Binyamin Natanyahu “dismisses the US as ‘easily moved to the right direction’ and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel ‘absurd’." |
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At the time Mr Netanyahu had taken a short break from politics but was soon to join Mr Sharon’s government as finance minister.
On a visit to a home in the settlement of Ofra in the West Bank to pay condolences to the family of a man killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, he makes a series of unguarded admissions about his first period as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999.
Seated on a sofa in the house, he tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process.
He dismisses the US as “easily moved to the right direction” and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel “absurd”.
He also suggests that, far from being defensive, Israel’s harsh military repression of the Palestinian uprising was designed chiefly to crush the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat so that it could be made more pliable for Israeli diktats.
All of these claims have obvious parallels with the current situation, when Mr Netanyahu is again Israel’s prime minister facing off with a White House trying to draw him into a peace process that runs counter to his political agenda.
| “The contemptuous view of Washington Mr Netanyahu demonstrates in the film will confirm the suspicions of many observers ... that his current professions of good faith should not be taken seriously.” |
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As before, he has ostensibly made public concessions to the US administration – chiefly by agreeing in principle to the creation of a Palestinian state, consenting to indirect talks with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, and implementing a temporary freeze on settlement building.
But he has also enlisted the powerful pro-Israel lobby to exert pressure on the White House, which appears to have relented on its most important stipulations. tbody>
The contemptuous view of Washington Mr Netanyahu demonstrates in the film will confirm the suspicions of many observers – including Palestinian leaders – that his current professions of good faith should not be taken seriously.
Critics have already pointed out that his gestures have been extracted only after heavy arm-twisting from the US administration.
More significantly, he has so far avoided engaging meaningfully in the limited talks the White House is promoting with the Palestinians while the pace of settlement building in the West Bank has been barely affected by the 10-month freeze, due to end in September.
In the meantime, planning officials have repeatedly approved large new housing projects in East Jerusalem and the West Bank that have undercut the negotiations and will make the establishment of a Palestinian state – viable or otherwise – far less likely.
The video proved that Netanyahu was a “con artist … who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes... Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years.”
Gideon Levy, columnist, Ha’aretz
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Writing in the liberal Israeli newspaper
Ha’aretz, the columnist Gideon Levy called the video “outrageous”. He said it proved that Mr Netanyahu was a “con artist … who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes”. He added that the prime minister had not reformed in the intervening period: “Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years.”
In the film, Mr Netanyahu says Israel must inflict “blows [on the Palestinians] that are so painful the price will be too heavy to be borne … A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority, to bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing”.
When asked if the US will object, he responds: “America is something that can be easily moved. Moved to the right direction… They won’t get in our way … Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd.”
He then recounts how he dealt with President Clinton, whom he refers to as “extremely pro-Palestinian”. “I wasn’t afraid to manoeuvre there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton.”
His approach to White House demands to withdraw from Palestinian territory under the Oslo accords, he says, drew on his grandfather’s philosophy: “It would be better to give two per cent than to give 100 per cent.”
He therefore signed the 1997 agreement to pull the Israeli army back from much of Hebron, the last Palestinian city under direct occupation, as a way to avoid conceding more territory.
| “There must be at least a very strong suspicion that Mr Netanyahu is as firmly committed today as he was then to destroying any chance of peace with the Palestinians.” |
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“The trick,” he says, “is not to be there [in the occupied territories] and be broken; the trick is to be there and pay a minimal price.”
The “trick” that stopped further withdrawals, Mr Netanyahu adds, was to redefine what parts of the occupied territories counted as a “specified military site” under the Oslo accords. He wanted the White House to approve in writing the classification of the Jordan Valley, a large area of the West Bank, as such a military site.
“Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give [them] the Hebron agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came … did I sign the Hebron agreement. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accords.”
Last week, after meeting Mr Obama in Washington, the Israeli prime minister gave an interview to Fox News in which he appeared to be in no hurry to make concessions: “Can we have a negotiated peace? Yes. Can it be implemented by 2012? I think it’s going to take longer than that,” he said.
There must be at least a very strong suspicion that Mr Netanyahu is as firmly committed today as he was then to destroying any chance of peace with the Palestinians
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Leaked video exposes Israeli Premier Netanyahu’s contempt for USA and intention to deceive PalestiniansIn this video, leaked and aired on Israeli Channel 10 TV, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is seen speaking candidly back in 2001 at a constituent's home about the Oslo accords, the peace process, Bill Clinton and the United States. He brags about having "stopped" Oslo accords and refers to America as something to be "moved in the right direction", citing polls showing Americans' support for Israel.
[Binyamin Netanyahu] Turn off the camera so that we can elaborate on this.
[Narrator]: A few minutes later... the camera is turned on again and Netanyahu begins to speak without quotation marks and without masks.
[Netanyahu] Now we're beginning to understand the meaning of the slogan “Yesha Zeikan Judea, Samaria and Azza are here”. Yesha is everywhere, what is the difference?
What does Arafat want? He wants one big settlement [implies Palestinians see all of Israel as a settlement].
[Woman] Yes that's what my daughter-in-law who came from England says [i.e. they, the Palestinians, see Tel Aviv as a settlement also].
[Natanyahu] Tel Aviv is also a settlement. From their [Palestinians] point of view, our territorial waters are also theirs. The fact is that they want us in the sea. Over there... [gestures] in the distant water.
The Arabs now are preparing for a campaign [or war] of terror, and they think that this will break us.
The main thing is, first and foremost, to hit them hard. Not just one hit... but many painful [hits], so that the price will be unbearable. The price is not unbearable, now. A total assault on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to a state of panic that everything is collapsing ... fear that everything will collapse... this is what we'll bring them to...
[Woman interrupts] But wait a minute, at that point the whole world will say “What are you occupiers”...
[Natanyahu interrupts] The world will say nothing. The world will say that we are defending ourselves.
| “I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction... Let's suppose that they [the Americans] will say something [i.e. to us Israelis] ... so they say it...” [i.e. so what?] |
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[Woman] Aren't you afraid of the world Bibi?
[Natanyahu] No. Especially now, with America, I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction. They [the Americans] will not bother us. Let's suppose that they [the Americans] will say something [i.e. to us Israelis]... so they say it... [so what?] Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. It's absurd! We have such [great] support there! And we say... what shall we do with this [support]?
Look, the other administration [that of Bill Clinton] was pro-Palestinian in an extreme way. I was not afraid to manoeuvre there. I did not fear confrontation with Clinton. I was not afraid to clash with the UN. As it is, I am paying the price in the international arena... So I might as well receive something of equal value in exchange.
[Child] But never mind that. We gave them things, and we can't take them back. Because they won't give them back to us.
[Natanyahu, gestures to let child speak] First of all, Oslo is a system [or package of things]. You're right... I do not know what can and cannot be taken back [from the Palestinians]
[Woman] He [the child] has political opinions, believe me.
[Natanyahu] He's right.
[Woman] He said such things to Arik Sharon that I told him: that's not – that's not a child's opinion. The Oslo accords are a disaster.
[Natanyahu] Yes, I know that and you know that... but the people need to know
[Woman] Right. But I thought that the prime minister did know, and that he'd do everything so that, somehow, not to do critical things, like handing over Hebron, that...
| “I interpret the [Oslo] accords in such a way that will enable me to stop this rush towards the 1967 borders.” |
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What were the Oslo accords? The Oslo accords, which the Knesset signed, I was asked, before the elections: "Will you act according to them?" and I answered: "Yes, subject to reciprocity and limiting the withdrawals." But how do you limit the withdrawals? I interpret the accords in such a way that will enable me to stop this rush towards the 1967 borders. [So] how do we do it?
[Narrator] The Oslo accords stated at the time that Israel would gradually hand over territories to the Palestinians in three different stages, unless the territories in question had settlements or military sites. This is where Netanyahu found a loophole.
[Natanyahu] No one said what defined military sites. Defined military sites, I said, were security zones. As far as I'm concerned, the Jordan Valley is a defined military site.
[Woman] Right [laughs]. The Beit She'an settlements. The Beit She'an Valley.
[Natanyahu] How can you tell. How can you tell? But then the question came up of just who would define what defined military sites were. I received a letter – to me and to Arafat, at the same time ... which said that Israel, and only Israel, would be the one to define what those are, the location of those military sites and their size. Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give the Hebron agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: "I'm not signing." Only when the letter came, in the course of the meeting, to me and to Arafat, only then did I sign the Hebron agreement, or rather, ratify it. It had already been signed. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accord.
[Woman interrupts] And despite that, one of our own people, excuse me, who knew it was a swindle, and that we were going to commit suicide with the Oslo accord, gives them, for example, Hebron. I never understood that.
[Natanyahu] Indeed, Hebron hurts. It hurts. It's the thing that hurts. One of the famous rabbis, whom I very much respect, a rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, he said to me: "What would your father say?" I went to my father. Do you know a little about my father's position?... He's not exactly a lily-white dove, as they say. So my father heard the question and said: “Tell the rabbi that your grandfather, Rabbi Natan Milikowski, was a smart Jew. Tell him it would be better to give two per cent than to give a 100 per cent. And that's the choice here. You gave two per cent and in that way you stopped the withdrawal, instead of 100 per cent.”
The trick is not to be there and break down. The trick is to be there and pay a minimal price.
[Woman] May you say that as prime minister.
[Natanyahu] In my estimation that will happen.
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Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National published in Abu Dhabi.
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