So Bibi Netanyahu is not for, and has never been for, not
really not no how, a Palestinian state. And he's been green-lighting precisely the
kinds of settlements and/or settlement expansions that would forestall such a dreadful
thing.
Who would have known? Didn't it seem like he was really an
Oslo kind of guy, an Oslo guy under the skin, perhaps? A closet kind of Oslo mensch?
Or nah, it didn't seem that way, as in this is always what
he was.
It's good — also pretty awful — to have it out in the open.
The Prime Minister of Israel for so long now and maybe again abjures the Oslo
Accords, spits on Rabin, Peres, Barak and the at least momentarily somewhat seemingly
conciliationist Arafat.
Terrific.
Netanyahu's predecessor as Likud Prime Minister, Menachem
Begin, played good chess. In Lawrence Wright's wonderful account —
"Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David"
(2014) — of the arduous negotiations that led to Israel surrendering the Sinai
to Egypt in exchange for which there was recognition of Israel by Egypt and a
peace treaty with it — you can find photos of Begin playing chess with Carter
advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Begin wins most of those games, while averring he hasn't played
since being arrested by the KGB in 1940 for Zionist activity in the midst of,
so he says, being immersed in a chess game. Begin's wife waltzes into one of
his games against Brzezinski to exclaim, au contraire, that this is great,
Menachem plays all the time, he loves chess, it keeps him young!