This is not the prime minister who’s going to divide the land with the Palestinians.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=172597

...(snip, because I think the end of the article is more interesting than the beginning)

SO LET’S see – if Netanyahu isn’t about to lead the country through fire and water to a new future, is there another Israeli leader who can? No there isn’t. Not now, anyway. What’s required of Israel in the two-state solution goes far, far beyond Menachem Begin’s return of the Sinai to Egypt, or Yitzhak Rabin’s recognition of the PLO, or Ariel Sharon’s pullout from Gaza – and there is no Israeli leader today who comes anywhere near Begin, Rabin or Sharon. Leadership today lies in the hands of the Right, spearheaded by the settler movement. Mainstream Israelis don’t want a battle royal with those people; they much prefer the status quo.

Only when the status quo becomes intolerable, when continuing the occupation arouses even more dread than the prospect of dividing the land and taking on the settlers, will Israelis be ready to free the Palestinians. And at that point, we won’t need a Begin, Rabin or Sharon for prime minister, we’ll just need a competent, respected executive to carry out the public’s will.

Meanwhile, it’s up to Israel’s friends – the US and the moderate majority in the rest of the democratic world – to make the status quo here intolerable, to make it clear that they’ve run out of patience for this 43-year-long throwback to colonialism that we’ve been running on the Palestinians.

But that’s not the only thing Israel’s friends have to tell us. They also have to make it clear that though they oppose our rule over the Palestinians, they support Israel as a Jewish state roughly within the pre-Six Day War borders, oppose the Palestinian “right of return,” and recognize the Jews’ claim to the Temple Mount alongside that of the Muslims, who call it the Noble Sanctuary.

In short, Israelis must be shown that they have a world to lose by holding onto the occupation and a world to gain by letting it go.

This is the only way it’s going to happen. There shouldn’t be any mystery about what Bibi’s going to do, or rather not do: He’s not going to do what’s necessary for peace. It’s not in him. The real question, now and in the years ahead, is this: What are Obama and Israel’s other sober-minded friends going to do?