Netanyahu Admitting to subverting the Oslo peace process?

Apparently there was a recording released recently of Netanyahu talking to some settlers in 2001 telling his side of the story and mentioning how he had subverted the peace process amongst other things.

To me atleast it shows how his policy was deliberate and well, kind of exactly what I and many many others had suspected.

“I know what America is,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way,” he said in Hebrew.

At one point on the tape, Netanyahu also threatens a “broad attack” against the Palestinian Authority. “The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne,” Netanyahu said. “A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority.”

Read more @

Netanyahu was always very public about his hardline position on Oslo. He felt Arafat was taking everyone for a ride, which is correct enough, and that whatever Israel did to honour the process shouldn't compromise Israeli security. I don't share his position but it confuses matters to use this old story as a starting point, as if his views are similar to those of religious settlers. We can all agree that Netanyahu is a crude politician, not a shrewd peacenik, and I dislike him, but it remains an issue of trust, not one of subversive intentions.

  • It can never be satisfied, the mind, never. -- Wallace Stevens