Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, Page 47

The Ostrovsky Files

Netanyahu: A Man Seeking Time to Pursue His Sinister Plan to “Transfer” All Palestinians to Jordan

By Victor Ostrovsky

Binyamin Netanyahu is no fool. The man is without a doubt a fabricator who has sold whatever soul he had to the devil, but a fool he is not. If he were, he would have been toppled long ago. Instead, he is not only still in power, but his popularity is on the rise.

One might deduce that this surge in his popularity is due to a sharp drop in the intellectual level of the Israeli population. That is true, in part, as the prime minister is smart enough to crystallize the core political elements that speak to the lowest common denominator, and with short crisp slogans sway the masses.

It also appears that Israel is no different from most of its Arab neighbors, where the act of standing up to the United States, even when it is futile, is regarded with reverence.

With such a domestic power base at his command, the Israeli prime minister appears not to care what the rest of the world thinks of him—so long as he can hold on to power long enough to complete his grand plan. In fact, it is possible that all his blunders are well-planned steps toward a goal that is not clearly visible to others.

Could it be that the man who whipped up the extremists with his fiery rhetoric, branding Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as a traitor, did not consider the possibility that his words could incite Rabin’s assassination? Or did Netanyahu come to realize that he could not win an election against Rabin, and therefore hoped for a violent solution to the problem?

I believe Netanyahu knew very well that he could not use the slogan “peace with security” in a successful campaign against Israel’s most beloved and respected general. So is Netanyahu stupid, or not?

Examining Netanyahu’s background, we find a man possessed by a determination to win, a man who wants to be remembered as the founder of the new Israel. He is a true revisionist, believing the world is divided into those he can manipulate and the enemy.

Netanyahu is impersonating the outsider, when in fact he is the establishment. When he ordered the Mossad to Jordan to murder a member of Hamas, he was well aware of the consequences. If the operation had been successful, King Hussein would have been blamed for the murder. Even in the event of a mishap, Netanyahu was sure the king would appear as a collaborator. (Netanyahu didn’t count on the would-be assassin being caught and confessing he was from Mossad.) Either option—a hitchless assassination blamed on the king or a flawed one blamed jointly on Israel and the king—would have worked equally well as part of a bigger plan.

If there is one man in Israeli politics who is aware of Netanyahu’s “bigger plan” it must be Ariel Sharon. For Sharon to be willing to endure silently the kind of punishment and degradation he is taking from Netanyahu, he must believe that Netanyahu’s plan corresponds with his own.

Sharon’s Solution

Now here is a plan we know, since Sharon was never shy in telling the world what he thinks is the solution to the Palestinian problem. Sharon believes that a Palestinian state already exists, and it is Jordan. Sharon has said on more than one occasion that the Palestinians constitute a majority in Jordan, and it is only the government that must be changed.

If that is the case, then all Netanyahu has to await, and maybe nudge a little, is the collapse of the Hashemite kingdom. If that happens there will be no need for a second Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

So what is Netanyahu seeking to gain from all of his “dumb” political maneuvering?

He needs time to get the king off his throne, and he needs time to allow Hamas in the territories to grow stronger—thus making the case that Israel has no one to talk to in the Palestinian community.

To ensure that he gets time, Netanyahu has brought on board the most extreme right-winger in Israeli politics—Knesset member Rehavam Zeevy, who still believes that all Palestinians should be transported out of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan.

To make sure that Hamas has a leader in Gaza, Netanyahu, against the advice of most of his security advisers, released from jail and has allowed the return to Gaza of Sheikh Yassin. As for the niggling with U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright over 9 percent or 13 percent of the West Bank, that is all just tactics to Netanyahu—fuel for his rhetoric—like the opening of the tunnel in Jerusalem and the start up of construction on Har Homa.

Netanyahu is a lonely man in Israel since he isolated Israel not only from the rest of the world, but from the United States as well. He has alienated all his friends, which might seem to be a stupid move, unless he wants no one to have to answer to.

If he really wanted to strengthen his coalition, he needed only to give his resigned foreign minister and Likud rival David Levy a little respect, and keep a promise every so often, but Netanyahu prefers to do things his own way. A man who managed to use his own marital infidelity as a trump card in the internal struggle for power within the Likud Party (by attacking Levy for allegedly leaking the story to the media) is not stupid. Or, if I am wrong about Netanyahu’s ultimate goal, then Binyamin Netanyahu is the most stupid man alive.