Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu reached to the Obama administration in his first post-election interview, which was conducted with the influential and pro-Obama Washington Post. He implicitly praised United States Middle East envoy George C. Mitchell for the peace agreement in Northern Ireland and cited it as positive evidence for his idea of “economic peace,” according to which the PA could become a stable and trusted entity if it is economically strong.
”Economic progress is not a substitute for political progress,” Netanyahu stated. “It is not a substitute, but in Northern Ireland it was an unbelievable facilitator for the Good Friday agreement and the others that followed.”
Concerning a two-state solution, which Washington backs, Netanyahu commented, “I think there is broad agreement inside Israel and outside that the Palestinians should have the ability to govern their lives but not to threaten ours."
He said he wants negotiations aimed at advancing the economy as well as strengthening PA security forces. The American government has taken on the task of training PA forces in the hopes that they will quell terrorism.
Economic progress is not a substitute for political progress.
He noted that Arabs in Judea and Samaria did not stage major attacks against Israel during the recent war in Gaza, indicating that the local population prefers law and order rather than a continued armed struggle against Israel.
The Prime Minister-designate, who so far has failed to convince Kadima leader Tzipi Livni to join a unity government, was decisive about Hamas, which he said is “incompatible with peace,” and about Syria.
Asked about Senator John Kerry’s recent visit to Syria, Netanyahu answered that talks with Syria have to begin with its abandoning its ties with Hizbullah and Hamas.
“Syria so far has been talking peace but has enabled Hizbullah to arm itself in contravention of United Nations Security Council resolutions with tens of thousands of rockets,” he said. Damascus also has “hosted [Hamas leader] Khaled Mashaal and other terrorist leaders and closely cooperated with the ayatollah regime in Iran."
The interview gave Netanyahu, who was Prime Minister in the mid-1990s, the opportunity to recall that that he concluded the Wye agreement for PA control over most of the ancient Jewish town Hevron.
He pointed out that he has met President Obama twice and “found him open to new ideas and seeking new ideas and a new path to achieve a successful outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and [to the situation] in the Middle East as a whole.”
Netanyahu is the second party chairman to turn to the American media to promote policies. Israel Is Our Home (Yisrael Beiteinu) chairman Avigdor Lieberman wrote in the New York Jewish Week Friday that he supports an independent PA state and that his party's Knesset delegation's inclusion of a Druze, several women and a convert disproves his media image of being a bigot.