EDITOR'S ISRAELI ELECTION REPORT: WHAT ABOUT NETANYAHU'S LAST MINUTE PROMISE THAT THERE WILL BE NO PALESTINIAN STATE-IS IT CHICKENSHIT?

In the final hours of the election campaign, Netanyahu said that there would be no Palestinian state under his watch.

“The goal (of avoiding a binational state) stands,” he said in his interview with the Times of Israel on Friday, days before the election, “but in the current circumstances in the Middle East, any territory that you vacate will be used for an armed Islamist state against us. That’s exactly what happened in Lebanon. That’s what happened in Gaza. And since the Arab Spring that’s what’s going to happen exactly in the West Bank — in Judea and Samaria — if we vacate territory.”

A day before the election, Netanyahu told the NRG Hebrew website, “I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state today, and evacuate areas, is giving radical Islam an area from which to attack the State of Israel.” When asked directly whether no Palestinian state would be created under his leadership, the prime minister replied: “Indeed"

The New York Times has written that given with " Netanyahu's last minute turnaround against a state alongside Israel several administration officials said that the Obama administration may now agree to a passage of a UnitedNations Security Council resolution "embodying the principles of a two-state solution that would include Israel's 1967 borders with Palestine and mutually agreed swaps of territory... Such a Security Council resolution would be anthema to Mr. Netanyahu. Although the principles are United States policy, until now officials would never have endorsed them in the United Nations because the action would have been seen as too antagonistic to Israel."

My gut is that Netanyahu will somehow have to square the circle and in future will 'adjust' his comments re a two state solution to leave open the possibility of a Palestinian state in the future, if he needs to so in order to avoid such a Security Council resolution. I venture to say that he will find a way to tip toe through the raindrops in order to prevent such a resolution, even though I do believe he really does not see any Palestinian state on the horizon. When he "adjusts" his position to affirm the principle of a Palestinian state, many of his voters will not be pleased and his zig zag will be noted, but they will live with this, (maybe even he'll announce new housing in East Jerusalem at the same time. He'll be pragmatic enough to make this adjustment.In the meantime, notwithstanding he was referred to by an unnamed Obama administration official as "Chickenshit" according to Jeffrey Goldberg in in a recent article in The Atlantic,Bibi Netanyahu has won four elections and could become the longest serving Prime Minister of Israel ever. As of now, he is second only to David Ben Gurion.

March 19 Postscript: Sure enough on March 19 , a day after I wrote the above, the headline run by the Times Of Israel reads NETANYAHU BACKS AWAY FROM REJECTION OF TWO STATE SOLUTION: IN NBC INTERVIEW PM INSISTS HE STILL SUPPORTS PALESTINIAN STATE IN PRINCIPLE:

“I haven’t changed my policy,” Netanyahu insisted. “I never retracted my speech at Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state.”

“What has changed is the reality,” he continued. “[Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] the Palestinian leader refuses to recognize the Jewish state and has made a pact with Hamas that calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, and every territory that is vacated today in the Middle East is taken up by Islamist forces. We want that to change so that we can realize a vision of real, sustained peace. I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that, circumstances have to change.”

However, Reuters reported that the US was unmoved by Netanyahu's backing a way from a rejection of a two state solution. According to Reuters US officials made it clear that they were not buying Netanyahu's backing away from what he said. Reuters quotes Whitehouse spokesman Josh Earnest: "It is cause for the United States to evaluate what our path is forward." As Reuters wrote: Among the most serious risks for Israel would be a shift in Washington's posture at the United Nations. The United States has long stood in the way of Palestinian efforts to get a UN resolution recognizing its statehood, including threatening to use its veto, and has protected Israel from efforts to isolate it internationally."

My question is whether if the US actually changed its posture and backed a UN resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood, would it be possible that Kulanu (the most moderate of Netanyahu's potential coalition partners) would bolt his coalition and require Netanyahu to seek a national unity government with the Zionist Union (formerly Labour and Hatnuah), in order to appease the US ?

A key figure in this regard would be the fourth on Kulanu's list, former Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, who has advocated a unilateral withdrawal form the West Bank, thereby having Israel declare its own borders, in the event that negotiations with Palestinians failed, and Israel was targetted with sanctions. If Oren believed that the US was going to change its postion at the UN re Palestinain statehood, might he convince Kulanu to leave Netanyahu's coalition, thereby forcing Netanyahu tohave to leave his narrow rihgt wing coalition and form a national unity government in order to remain Prime Minister?. President Rivlin has wanted a natioanl unity government with the Zionist Union in it.