I’m always tickled by the little howlers that the N.Y. Times Israel correspondents introduce into their copy which reveal their cluelessness at the subtleties of Israeli politics. Ethan Bronner is notorious for ’em. Isabel Kershner has her share. In today’s Times, Kershner quotes Dennis Ross reeling off of those mini-whoppers. Here he’s characterizing the politics of Bibi Netanyahu’s chief negotiator in the upcoming Palestinian peace talks:
Mr. Ross added that Mr. Molcho was not a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-leaning Likud Party and tended in his personal politics to the center-left…
Oh yeah. Bibi definitely pals around with someone on the center-left of Israeli politics. By center-left Ross probably means someone who generally supports Kadima’s views, if that. He certainly doesn’t mean someone supporting Labor, and God forbid not Meretz. But I’ve got news for Ross, there is no left in Israeli politics anymore unless you’re talking about Hadash. And no mainstream Israeli Jewish political leader would be caught dead supporting Hadash.
So what Ross really means is that Bibi is the hard right and Molcho the soft right. To even use terms like “center” or “left” to describe Molcho’s politics is a fraud. Don’t fall for it.
I’m also tickled by Bibi’s insistence even before the doomed peace negotiations begin for regular bi-monthly meetings with Mahmoud Abbas. Bibi wants to use such tetes a tete as a fig leaf so he can go to the Americans and moderate Israelis and show them what a good, peace-lovin’ guy he is. Of course, the talks, if Abbas is foolish enough to agree to them, will produce nothing and waste everyone’s time just as similar talks between Olmert and Abbas produced nothing.
What can be expected from somebody like Dennis Ross who had his share in spoiling the Camp David talks of 2000 and who, in april 1992, boasted in front of the SF jewish community that it would be an “achievement” that unter the auspices of G.H.W. Bush the Arabs “had not been able to make the formal freezing of settlements a precondition for the holding of talks” (cit. Clayton Swisher, p.32)
Hradly Ross can be looked upon as somebody who is evenhandend in terms of handling the near east conflict. So you are absolutely right that it is a shame that NYT et. al. quote him without putting his remarks in a critical light.