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Comment and Opinion

CNN: Why Netanyahu must stand up to Israel’s right, by Alan Johnson

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Israel is at a crossroads: two states or not two states.

Of course, the world does not expect a deal to be made tomorrow — or even soon. These days, no one is that naive. But it does want to hear from Israel that there has been no paradigm shift, no retreat to the old dream of a Greater Israel by annexation, and no abandonment — once recognition, security guarantees and the formal end-of-claims by the Palestinians have been secured — of the commitment to Palestinian statehood.

Because this significant shift is what is at stake, it really matters that Israel’s Naftali Bennett has been making threats again.

The fiery 44-year-old chairman of the pro-settler, hard-right, religious-Zionist party Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home), and the governing coalition’s controversial minister of education, thundered this warning in advance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington: “If [US President Donald] Trump and Netanyahu even mention a Palestinian state, the earth will shake.”

Israelis have taken to wondering aloud if Bennett, with his eight seats in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, is the real prime minister and Netanyahu, with his 30 seats, is his ambassador to Washington.

On issue after issue, Bennett is perceived to have dragged Netanyahu and Israel to the wilder shores of the right and away from the two-state paradigm.

For example, when IDF soldier Sgt. Elor Azaria shot dead an already wounded Palestinian assailant in the West Bank city of Hebron, Netanyahu initially sided with the stance taken by then-Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and the IDF commanders, saying: “What happened in Hebron does not represent the values of the Israel Defense Forces.”

After pressure from Bennett and the hard-right, who whipped up a public campaign in defense of Azaria, Netanyahu backtracked, making a personal phone call to Azaria’s parents and saying, “We back our soldiers.”

Yaalon was soon after removed as defense minister and replaced by Avigdor Lieberman, who had joined street demonstrations in support of Azaria. Yaalon has since complained bitterly that “the Prime Minister unfortunately switched sides, and decided to embrace the soldier’s family. That’s his business, not mine. I decided to support the commanders and I was left alone in that war.”

Read the full article in CNN.