Blinken signals no immediate US press for Mideast cease-fire

[karynnj]

6. It might be that PUBLICLY pushing Netanyahu would be counterproductive

Blinken's comments are more balanced than many previous Secretaries of State. (other than Kerry) As a Senator, Sanders has much more latitude in his oped - and he, like Blinken and Biden, speaks of Israel's right to defend itself.

The biggest problem is that compared to any past time, pushing for a cease fire that would then lead to a serious process to achieve a fair resolution - such as the two state solution - is pretty unlikely. Israel's elections have elected progressively more right wing members of Knesset in each of the last 4 elections that all seemed to have failed to create a government. The large block of ultraorthodox and the large block of right wing, nationalist MKs, either for or against Netanyahu, are by far the majority in the Knesset.

The problem with getting the 61 (out of 120) MKs needed to form a government is NOT because there are too few MKs who are right wing or ultraorthodox - many to the right of Netanyahu, it is that they are divided as some feel that Netanyahu is too corrupt to continue as Prime Minister. The last election even brought the Kahanist party into the Knesset -- and Netanyahu would have brought them into his government. Netanyahu was a few short of the 61 needed. The change faction looked like it might possibly pull off a win toppling Netanyahu as PM before the violence started. Lapid, who had the mandate to form that government would have had votes ranging from some on the far right, where Bennet led what is a settlers' party, to Meretz (the party DU might most agree with) to some Arabs, possibly supporting "from the outside". Bennet stopped talks when the attacks began. However, given how diverse it would have been, it is hard to imagine it having the ability to negotiate anything on teh Palestinian issue without blowing up.

While a ceasefire needs to happen, any "next steps" are tricky if not impossible as neither Israel or the Palestinians have a current government that is not just a caretaker government. This makes Biden's and Blinken's role far harder - even behind the scenes. Consider that if they deal wit just Netanyahu, it could be seen as giving him support over alternatives.

As to US diplomatic comments on Israel, remember how much flak John Kerry took when he said to an American Jewish audience, which did not disagree, that IF Israel continued on the path it was going, it COULD become an apartheid nation. Many in Europe and on the left here would have not used the two (capitalized) conditional words. Obviously the Trump/Kushner actions made the situation worse. For decades, liberal Jews and US policy may have used the goal of two states to avoid an obvious question. In the most of the rest of the world US policy is to push for Democratic governments that protect the rights of the minorities. Yugoslavia is a counterexample where a country was decomposed into new more homogeneous countries. However, in Israel, an additional plan is that Israel wants an ever increasing portion of the land.

Beyond Kerry, Blinken and even Sanders, I was very surprised to read an oped written by a young, American Jewish pundit, Peter Beinart that endorses the Palestinian right to return and implicitly a one state solution. https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return/

Others know the Israeli parties better than I do, but I would guess that of the Jewish parties, only Meretz would even consider an idea like this.