Bibi on Bin Laden: 'Good Riddance'

The New York Times reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today capped off a turbulent visit to Washington with a speech to a more sympathetic audience in Congress than he found at the White House, emphasizing the close ties between allies and urging the spread of democracy while promising peace negotiations aimed at “a far-reaching compromise” with the Palestinians.

He said that could only happen after the Palestinians agree to live with a Jewish state that would include lands in the suburbs of Jerusalem and around Tel Aviv. While some land where Israelis have settled would lie outside its final borders, he said, the borders would not be identical to those of 1967 and before, which he said were indefensible. Palestinian refugees and their descendants, he said, would have to find their homes outside Israel’s borders, limiting their right of return to old homelands.“I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace,” he said, adding that it would not be easy, because “in a genuine peace, we will be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland.”

As the Israeli prime minister’s visit ended, he sought to put the final punctuation on a somewhat testy back-and-forth with President Obama that began last week as the president urged that the borders of Israel and a new Palestinian state should be “based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed swaps” of territory.

The notion of a return to anything like pre-1967 borders that bounded Israel before the Six Day War drew fierce criticism from Israel and many of its supporters, even though in Mr. Obama’s formulation it would include adjustments that would require negotiations over Jewish settlements built up since then. An angry Mr. Netanyahu objected that it would have left Israel a mere nine miles wide at the narrowest. Mr. Obama had seemed to at least partly mollify his critics when he emphasized in a speech to the pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac on Sunday that Israel should be able to negotiate keeping some settlements in a final agreement with the Palestinians.

And just as Mr. Netanyahu had done on Monday in his own speech to Aipac, where he had again called the 1967 borders indefensible, in taking the same stance on Tuesday in his speech to Congress he emphasized the positive elements in a relationship where the tensions have been aired in public continuously for a week.

Making his second appearance before a joint meeting of Congress, Mr. Netanyahu entered to prolonged applause, accompanied by a hefty delegation of supportive senators and representatives. And practically every paragraph he spoke was met with more applause.

He opened on a feisty note, with laugh lines and applause lines that were warmly received and with a calm reply to a heckler early on — a sign, he said to more applause, of “real democracy.”

"Do you remember the time that we were the new kids in town?" he asked Vice President Biden, who was seated behind him next to House Speaker John Boehner. Mr. Biden laughed and crossed himself.

And when he mentioned fighting terrorism, which he called a common cause, he proclaimed: “Congratulations, America. Congratulations, Mr. President. You got Bin Laden. Good riddance!"

Like Mr. Obama’s speech last week, Mr. Netanyahu’s dwelled at length on the promise of democracy in the Arab world, offering Israel’s vigorous support for those across the Middle East and Africa who have taken to the streets in recent months to protest against repressive governments.

“An epic battle is now under way in the Middle East between tyranny and freedom,” he said, offering praise to the “courageous Arab protesters.”

Of the 300 million Arab citizens across the region, he said, only the 1 million who are Arab citizens of Israel now enjoy the basic democratic rights those protesters seek.

“Israel,” he said, “fully supports the desire of the Arab people in our region to live freely.”

He also warned, though, of the dangers of “Islamic extremism,” particularly in Iran, which he warned might soon obtain nuclear weapons.

“Time is running out,” he said. “The hinge of history may soon turn.”