British statesman Leopold Amery's plea to prime minister Neville Chamberlain - "For God's sake, go" - has undergone many incarnations, and I'm surprised at my colleague Nahum Barnea, who made do with a simple "Go" in reference to Avigdor Lieberman. The suspicion that Lieberman received documents relating to the investigation against him from our ambassador in Belarus is now being checked by the police. It doesn't smell good - not to mention that the stench of the foreign minister's behavior justifies speeding up the distribution of gas masks.
But the problem is not Avigdor, it's the person who appointed him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is gradually going back to being the Bibi of his first term. Never since the founding of the state has its image, prestige, reputation and moral and ethical weight been at such a nadir. The commander of the Dubai police is sitting comfortably in his armchair and enumerating one by one the mistakes he claims were made by the Mossad - for example, dressing one of its fattest agents in a tennis outfit. He is also issuing international arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
And in a public courtroom in Barcelona, Israel is being portrayed as a country that tramples basic human rights, while Hamas is being "acquitted" of being a terror organization.
Eight months after his speech at Bar-Ilan University, in which Bibi proposed two states for two peoples, it is hard to understand how the speech turned into a dead letter. The addendums that followed it such as his demand that the Palestinians recognize us as a Jewish state and various other reservations, the lack of momentum, a foreign minister who flies all over the world and does everything but promote peace - all these have combined with a prime minister whose intentions are suspect in any case to create growing resentment against Israel.
The country's public relations and response mechanisms have been demoralized. A member of the foreign service describes our representatives worldwide as worn out. Ambassadors are incapable of appearing on television or dealing with heckling against Israel during meetings or at universities. Has anyone heard lately about what the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations is doing? Are there pro-Israel demonstrations by American Jews like there used to be?
Israel's image is one of the worst in the world, and this is reflected in signs of creeping delegitimization. And no public relations effort can be of use without action. According to Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul in New York, the world is tired of us. The best PR will not have any effect when the facts indicate that we are working in the opposite direction.
It's true that the Palestinian leadership is delaying the onset of negotiations. For them, delay is part of the negotiations. But for Bibi, it's more a reason to celebrate, hoping that they will once again miss an opportunity. Bibi is probably saying to himself that every day without negotiations is another day on which we were not required to give anything up. If he really wanted the talks to resume, he knows very well what he has to do.
With every passing day, Netanyahu is going back to Bibi's caprices. Suddenly he rolled out the issue of the heritage of our holy sites, in the tradition of the Western Wall tunnel ("the rock of our existence"). It may seem as if the goal was to infuriate the Palestinians, but actually he wants to win the hearts of his party's Feiglin faction of right-wing settlers - so they won't, God forbid, accuse him of dancing to the tune of the tiny Labor Party.
As if all this were not enough, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat decided now of all times to announce the demolition of dozens of Arab homes that were built in Silwan without permits years ago, in order to replace them with a park. Barkat was not joking when he said this would be good for the Arabs. But even Bibi understood that the plan was a recipe for escalation in Jerusalem: He asked Barkat not to implement it now, but to continue trying to reach understandings with the residents "for fear of unnecessary escalation in the area."
On top of all this, we haven't seen the removal of even one illegal settlement outpost as a symbolic gesture of willingness to make concessions. No public relations can replace a policy with "positive energy," as they say on the TV reality show "Big Brother."
Lieberman's appointment as foreign minister was reminiscent of Caligula's appointment of his horse as a Roman consul. Though it's not clear exactly what they agreed on in private, we can guess that Bibi made an offer and Lieberman promised not to interfere with the peace process, on the assumption and understanding that nothing would come of it in any case.
But the damage Lieberman is doing to Israel's image by the suspicions in which he is embroiled is going too far.
The entire world is not against us yet, but with a little effort, even that can be fixed. Soon, at America's initiative, negotiations may begin via "proximity" talks between the parties. The problem is not Lieberman, who will leave in any case (and would do well to take Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon with him), but Netanyahu. The prime minister must prove that he didn't lie to the Jewish people, and the world, when he promised peace on the basis of two states for two peoples.
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