When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a weeklong trip to the United States, he did so as a winner, both in his own eyes and the Israeli public's.
"We found wide American support for Israel's basic demands," Netanyahu said Wednesday at a press conference after landing in Israel.
According to a Dialog institute poll released on Thursday, 47 percent of the Israeli public believes Netanyahu's U.S. trip was a success, while only 10 percent viewed it as a failure.
In addition, nearly half of the interviewees said that they felt proud when they saw Netanyahu address the Congress on Tuesday, compared to five percent that deemed it a missed opportunity.
However, in the months leading up to the visit, Israeli media was speculating that "Bibi," as he is known in Israel, would use the U.S. congress speech to present new ideas to break the current deadlock in the peace process with the Palestinians. No new ideas were presented in the end, as many international observers considered.
Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted as saying that the Israeli prime minister "did not say anything that we can build on positively."
Israeli analysts said that Netanyahu was in a stronger position than before leaving, but that it was hard to say whether or not he was successful because no one really knew his goals.
NETANYAHU'S POPULARITY BOOSTED
Prof. Efraim Inbar of Bar-Ilan University told Xinhua that he doesn't know what Netanyahu wanted to achieve, but that the prime minster improved his standing. "Netanyahu has solidified support for his government here, he has a very stable coalition which is going strong," he said.
"In public opinions, he does very well with America which is very important to him. They applaud him," Inbar added.
Netanyahu during his speech to the U.S. Congress reconfirmed his government's rejection over the so-called 1967 borders and Israel's strong position on the issues like the status of Jerusalem and future Palestinian state's demilitarization, while expressing his willingness "to make painful compromises to achieve " the peace with Palestinians.
The Dialog survey revealed that 51 percent of Israelis support Netanyahu after his speech in the U.S. congress, a result considered by Ha'aretz as a "reverse" of the trend of Netanyahu's drop in his popularity ratings. A poll conducted by the Israeli daily five weeks ago concluded as 38 percent expressed satisfaction with the prime minister's performance and 53 percent disappointed.
Prof. Camile Fuchs, who contributed to the Dialog poll, noted the fact that the majority of Israeli voters become right-winged as behind the result of the recent poll.
"Therefore, his speech about not giving up the settlements and no negotiation with the Palestinian National Authority as long as they negotiate with Hamas was welcome here," the professor of the Tel Aviv University Statistics Department told Xinhua.
WINNER OR LOSER
As of the question whether Netanyahu's U.S. trip was successful or not, Prof. Gideon Doron of Tel Aviv University believes that the answer depends on what one assumes the Israeli prime minister wanted to achieve.
Doron said that Netanyahu most defiantly has improved not only his domestic political standing but has returned as an inspiring leader, due to the way which he delivered the speech in the congress. "So definitely he is a winner, the question is it's in the short or long term," Doron told Xinhua.
He argued that there are two questions that need to be considered here: what the speech was supposed to do and whether the speech contributes to the peace process.
"The answer is positive if the question is if it contributed to Netanyahu's political position. It contributes to the maintenance of his coalition," Doron said. "But it contributed very little to the long term interest of Israel or how to solve the conflict, on the contrary."
According to Doron, everyone in media was expecting for Netanyahu to say something that would be able to restart the direct peace talks with the Palestinians, which have been in hiatus since a 10-month Israeli freeze on construction in the West Bank ended in September.
Prof. Fuchs sees Netanyahu's congress speech matters more of where he made it, instead of what he said. "If he had given the same speech at the Knesset (Israeli parliament), he would not have received the same appraisal," he said, adding that "the way he works, his job, hasn't changed."
ISRAEL-U.S. BONDS
Doron argued that, instead of the Middle East peace process, what Netanyahu did was to indicate to the world that the U.S. and Israel are allies. Though they can quarrel with each other, they are allies and the U.S. will help to protect Israel's interests and that has nothing to do with the Palestinian issue, the professor said.
The importance of winning America's support was also mentioned by Prof. Shlomo Aronson from the Hebrew University's Department of Political Science, who referred to Washington's influence in the international community.
"The backbone of Netanyahu's recent public acclaim was the success he had in getting the support from the U.S. congress, even if it's only for short period," Aronson told Xinhua.
According to the Dialog poll, 27 percent of interviewees said that Israel-U.S. relations would actually improve as a result of the visit, compared to 13 percent thought relations would deteriorate. Nearly half of those questioned don't think there will be any change.
The poll surveyed 477 people and had a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.
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