By Stan Goodenough
Jun 16, 2009
Like a well-smacked pool ball, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Sunday night policy speech reverberated around the world, triggering reactions ranging from the extremely positive to the vigorously negative.
While not unexpected, the universally rejectionist Arab response unmasked yet again that people's disinterest in living in peace with Israel.
Palestinian Arabs reacted with anger to the Israeli leader's offer of a homeland inside the Land of Israel and his call for their reciprocal recognition of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.
"Netanyahu wants to put us in a situation where he looks like he offered something, and we said no," Palestinian Authority spokesman Sa'eb Erekat said. "Netanyahu's speech was very clear. He rejects the two-state solution."
According to the Reuters news agency, PA 'Prime Minister' Salam Fayyad said Netanyahu had "failed to meet the expectations of the international community."
Lebanon slammed Netanyahu's "intransigence" when dealing with peace or the Palestinian refugees."
The Lebanese Hizb'allah mockingly chided the prime minster for disappointing "so-called moderate Arabs" who were hoping for peace with Israel.
A state-run Saudi daily, Al-Nadwa, decried "every paragraph of Netanyahu's speech [for making] us more pessimistic."
Syria called on the world powers to force a stop to the building of Jewish communities.
Reactions from Egypt and Jordan - the two Arabs states with which Israel has signed peace treaties - were similarly hostile.
"Netanyahu offered rotten merchandise. Nobody will buy it," editorialized the Jordanian pro-government Al-Rai.
His peace mask slipping to reveal a sneer, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused Netanyahu of "further complicating the situation and scuttling any chance of peace."
Elsewhere the response was less focused.
After initially calling the Israeli's stance an "important step forward," US President Barack Obama concurred that there was still a lot of work to do.
The European Union damned Netanyahu's comments with faint praise, saying they were a step in the right direction, but did not go far enough to warrant the raising of relations with Israel to a higher level.
Russia said Netanyahu's "acceptance" of the creation of a Palestinian state proves "Tel Aviv is open for peaceful dialog" with the PA "but would not help Mideast talks.