Bibi  Incompetent Negotiator
Bibi Incompetent Negotiator



The most crucial asset when "push comes to shove" is being a good negotiator.

The defenders of Bibi Netanyahu point out that whether we like it or not, Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and Eastern Jerusalem were never officially annexed, and therefore are on the negotiation table by definition.

Like pawns in a complex chess game, they can be used to try to achieve that evasive truce with the Arab world.

The same can be said about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and Israel’s powerful air force. These are additional pawns that allow Israel to engage in negotiations with both the Arab world and the world at large.

These are the givens, the game pieces that are in our hands.

There is, however, a fundamental problem with these givens. They cannot be expected to stand alone. Negotiation requires real assets to negotiate about, of course, but the most crucial asset when "push comes to shove" is being a good negotiator.

Given Netanyahu’s rhetorical skill, one would assume he is one, but his track record reveals the complete opposite.  Three examples will suffice, not including the Wye Plantation negotiations where Bibi agreed to redeployment in Hevron, getting nothing in return.

When Netanyahu became Prime Minister in 1996 he signed a peace agreement with King Hussein, father of current King Abdullah of Jordan. In this agreement, Netanyahu secured a peace treaty with Jordan in exchange for territorial concessions in the Negev and a promise to provide a set amount of water supplied from the Kinneret regardless of rainfall or capacity.

In sum Israel gave Jordan what it wanted and in return Israel received a shaky and scrawny promise of peace. Today in Jordan, there are many Israelis who conduct business but the hatred of Israel is felt at every level of Jordanian society.

Public opinion was split when it was revealed that Bibi was working with Ehud Barak to secure the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for 980 terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. The sheer numbers being negotiated were staggering, whether you felt that we should pay any price or not.

Netanyahu’s promise to President Barak Hussein Obama to halt construction in Judea and Samaria was in exchange for… well, absolutely nothing, not even a warm ‘atta-boy’ from Obama and his advisors.

So Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, Eastern Jerusalem, our nuclear facilities and our military capabilities can all be perceived and treated as assets for negotiation.

The problem is that Netanyahu is a terrible negotiator. We can only get more of the above if he is at the table.

He is a great orator, and that makes him eerily similar to Obama. They "talk the talk" but neither knows anything about how to "walk the walk" with the Islamic world.

They are negotiating our patrimony and Bibi does not know how to do it well. If we stand by without making ourselves heard, we will find ourselves with another piece of paper, an empty promise and a much more vulnerable stance.

I think we should devise an entirely different strategy. We should begin it by electing a better negotiator, one that can accurately represent a strong Jewish position.