On what's sustainable, what's not sustainable and other bargains - Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz:

'What they’re all doing is conceding to Netanyahu. They don’t want him to annex, but they acknowledge that this is something now in his power to do. And Netanyahu is already banking that victory.

It’s hard to pin down a frank and truthful statement from the prime minister, but the best place to do so is in his interviews with the right-wing media. In an interview with the Netanyahu-worshipping free sheet Israel Hayom, he had this to say to right-wingers criticizing him for accepting the Trump plan, which also includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in 70 percent of the West Bank:

“Did they achieve from the Americans the issue of applying sovereignty? Who achieved it? For the first time since the founding of the state I’ve obtained American recognition – first in the Golan Heights and Jerusalem and then in an arrangement that will allow American recognition of our homeland territories in Judea and Samaria. These are Trump’s decisions and I’m the one who discussed them with him. Not anyone else.”

Sources in the government are calling the annexation “Netanyahu’s legacy,” but as far as he’s concerned he has already achieved his legacy. “The main thing now is the change of rules regarding applying sovereignty,” he told the right-wing weekly Makor Rishon.

“Until today it was always Israel that needed to concede, to give up, to freeze and retreat. That was the basic idea of every peace plan that had been presented to us. Now comes President Trump and his people come, and they change direction. They don’t say Israel needs to concede. It’s the Palestinians who need to concede.”

Netanyahu is a politician who has always placed major value on words, on the prevailing discourse. And in this case he’s right. The words have changed. Even when everyone calls it “annexation” rather than “applying sovereignty,” which he insists on using, he has changed the discourse. No one is talking about pullbacks and dismantling settlements anymore.

Whether or not he goes ahead with annexation, Netanyahu has already won. Twenty-four years ago, when he first became prime minister, he was forced to continue the Oslo process, which as opposition leader he abominated. Bill Clinton made him retreat from most of Hebron and sign the Wye River Memorandum in 1998, relinquishing more territory. In 2009, when he returned to power and this time met Barack Obama at the White House, he was pressured into agreeing to a temporary settlement freeze and publicly accepting the two-state solution.

Eleven years later and so much has changed. In his speech to the UN General Assembly in 2010, Obama said “when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” But by the end of his presidency, he wasn’t even mentioning Israel and Palestine in his UN speeches. The pendulum had been swinging back already in 2014, when the talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry, ran aground.

So many factors worked against the diplomatic process long before Donald Trump was elected. The Arab revolutions that broke out in 2011 moved the focus elsewhere. The Sunni Arab states preferred to enter an unofficial alliance with Israel against Iran.

Under Obama, Washington dramatically lost credibility in the region when it decided not to act against the Assad regime’s mass murder of Syrian civilians. The Palestinians themselves, split between the Fatah-dominated PA in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza, failed to present a unified position. Netanyahu hadn’t created any of these circumstances, but he used them all masterfully to his benefit. He realized that it would be relatively easy for him to withstand pressure to make concessions.

The Palestinian issue, for so long a constant presence on the international agenda, was sidelined. For decades, the Israeli left wing and Western politicians and pundits had warned that the occupation in the West Bank was “unsustainable,” that perpetuating it would make Israel a “global pariah,” that a “diplomatic tsunami” was on the way. Two sets of acronyms were used to threaten Israel – BDS and ICC. But the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement turned out to be an empty threat and the International Criminal Court has yet to decide whether it even has jurisdiction over events in the West Bank and Gaza, let alone haul Israeli officials before it.

Victory at Ben-Gurion Airport

This week was the 53rd anniversary of the Six-Day War. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has proved remarkably durable, and yes, altogether sustainable. In the meantime, under a right-wing Netanyahu government that has been entrenching the occupation, Israel in the last five years has enjoyed unprecedented economic prosperity, the lowest levels of violence since its independence and burgeoning foreign trade and relations.

These ties include, since 2018, the overflight of Saudi airspace for airliners en route to Israel, and just this week the first landing of an Etihad plane at Ben-Gurion Airport. This is what normalization looks like.

Even if annexation doesn’t take place next month, the Israeli left, the so-called “international community” and the “peace process industry” of nongovernmental organizations, think tanks and UN agencies have to finally concede defeat. For decades they operated on the premise that for Israel to have any hope of security and prosperity, it needed to give up control of the occupied territories and allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.

They’ve now reached the point that the best they can hope for is Netanyahu not annexing parts of the West Bank. And if he indeed holds off with annexation, it will have a lot more to do with his own internal political and legal considerations than with their pressure.'

Read the article here.

Threaten everybody with annexation, then don't do it and make it appear as a huge compromise.

Take the most extreme position available in order to make your 'real' position look like a moderate position.

The status quo, once described as unsustainable, became permanent.
After the permanent revolution the permanent status quo.