"The world is sick and tired of Netanyahu's cat and mouse games"

Carlo Strenger in Haaretz, here

"Israel's politicians simply don't get it: The world is sick and tired of the Israeli government's cat and mouse games. Netanyahu's one 'great' move so far has been to utter the words 'Palestinian state' during his foreign policy address at Bar Ilan University in June. For some reason the world did not rejoice and laud him for his enormous political creativity. Accepting a Palestinian State in principle is no breakthrough in 2009: it is, at most, par for the course. ......

he has engaged in endless bickering over whether Israel will or won't stop the building in the West Bank settlements, and has effectively prevented any serious peace negotiations.......

Even Israel's friends no longer buy these excuses for doing nothing except build a few thousand more apartments in the territories. ......

I too feel sick and tired, and his plan may be sound from from the American perspective. But I am worried. His (Friedman's) advice to the U.S. administration primarily serves the Netanyahu government. If you were to ask Netanyahu what he covets most, the answer would be that he wants Obama and Mitchell off his back. After all, the only policy he has formulated is to remain in power without an overt break with the U.S. If the U.S. administration indeed backs off, this government can last for quite some time.

The result, as King Abdullah of Jordan keeps warning us, will be another round of bloodletting. We don't know whether it will start from Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon, but the current situation is the perfect recipe for the continuation of the low intensity warfare that Israel has been involved in for years now.

But this is exactly Friedman's point: he says that neither Israel nor the Palestinians seem to feel enough pain to want to change the status quo. An increase in pain possibly means the resumption of suicide bombings in Israel and, as a result, more dead, wounded and traumatized Israelis and Palestinians. The further decline in Israel's moral fiber and international standing will be the inevitable result."