Netanyahu's Diplomacy From Mubarak to Obama

"Netanyahu's first stop was very successful," Shimon Shiffer writes in Yediot Acharonoth:

The prime minister met yesterday in Sharm el-Sheikh with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the two heaped compliments on one another. But at the final stop he can expect a much harder task: waiting for him in the Oval Office of the White House next Monday will be US President Barack Obama, the person whom Netanyahu will have to persuade that, contrary to his image, he is prepared to hold serious negotiations with the Palestinians.

Close aides to the prime minister admit that the meeting with President Mubarak was meant, among other things, to relay a message to the US president that Netanyahu is not the same Netanyahu of a decade ago. Netanyahu's close associates are well aware that some of the American president's advisers describe Netanyahu as being "extreme right wing," as "untrustworthy," as "misleading," and as someone who has to be pushed with force to join the American effort to promote arrangements between Israel and the Arab states.

Netanyahu is well aware of the importance of relations with the Obama administration, and it can therefore be assumed that he is making a real effort to change his image. By means of the meeting with Mubarak, and perhaps also his upcoming meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, he wishes to prove that he is willing to renew dialogue with the Palestinians and to hold negotiations with the Arab states on a regional arrangement.

Yesterday Mubarak and Netanyahu sounded closer than ever before.

Netanyahu said that the Egyptian president had courage, he said that the peace of over 30 years with Egypt was a strategic asset and the cornerstone of stability in the Middle East. Director of Egyptian Intelligence General Omar Suleiman  described the meeting with Netanyahu as excellent. Who remembers that ten years ago Mubarak talked about Netanyahu's lack of credibility.

As for the substance of the meeting, both sides continue to maintain different positions.  Mubarak was unable to extract from Netanyahu a commitment to negotiate with the Palestinians on the establishment of a state of their own. In the prime minister's view, this is not a matter of semantics. We will not let a Hamas entity be established in the West Bank, as happened in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu told the Egyptian president. The Israeli side does not believe that the PA is ready for taking responsibility over the West Bank and proposes that the negotiations be run on the basis of strengthening the PA's economy and the Palestinian security forces.

Netanyahu's spokespeople made a tremendous effort last night to project to the media that the prime minister had succeeded in persuading Mubarak on a series of subjects on which there is a convergence of interests requiring close cooperation. On the subject of Iran, for example, Egypt fears that Iran is acting to take over states in the region, whereas the Israelis are only interested in the nuclear threat.

"You, if you succeed in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, will yet find a way to hook up with them," a high-ranking Egyptian told his Israeli counterpart.

On the matter of the Gaza Strip, the Egyptians want to continue talks with Hamas to stabilize the calm with Israel. Netanyahu is opposed to this and does not share the position of Defense Minister Barak  that only by means of an arrangement that Egypt might broker with Hamas will it be possible to direct attention to other problems relating to security, including the release of soldier Gilad Shalit. The Egyptians promised Netanyahu to handle the matter of Shalit, but made it clear that the price could not be changed: more than 450 top prisoners in Israeli jails.

On the subject of normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab world, Mubarak made it clear to Netanyahu that he does not believe in the ideas that are raised in discussions at the White House in advance of Netanyahu's arrival whereby the Arab states will make a gesture on recognizing Israel in return for its willingness to withdraw to the 1967 borders. The Egyptian president believes that this was already tried in the mid 1990s and nothing came of it-the Israelis continued to build in the territories and the Arab states washed their hands of the idea.