Benjamin Netanyahu Returns a New Man

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returns to Israel today, will be substantively different from the man who left for the summit in the United States 10 days ago. All of the posturing, gamesmanship and the rest of the exercises which accompanied the past week will not succeed in obscuring the new reality that has been created. For many long months, Netanyahu was poised at the brink, shouting and kicking, without anyone knowing where he was heading, but when he finally mounted the bridge over the Wye River, he also crossed his personal Rubicon.

In contrast to the Hebron agreement, the legacy of the Labor Party that was put together in haste and in secret, the Wye River memorandum was signed under the camera lights, in a festive and impressive ceremony. This is Netanyahu's agreement, without excuses, and the public responsibility for it falls squarely on his shoulders. Even if it is found to be difficult to translate the agreement's articles into reality on the ground, as many expect, Netanyahu will no longer be able to deny his signature, which transfers to the Palestinians broad areas of the Land of Israel, which are so dear to the prime minister.

With all of the cynicism and uncertainty that accompany most of the activities of Netanyahu, the consummate politician, one cannot help but appreciate the personal difficulty that was involved in the step he took, and one should not belittle the personal political risk he took. At a price of theoretical gains in the future electoral market, Netanyahu has now made what is perhaps a final divorce from the base that pushed him into power.

One can admire or hate Netanyahu, but no one can deny that he supplies an ongoing melodrama heretofore unseen on our screens, and whose climax may still lie before us. Netanyahu, for better or worse, gave a consummate performance, and this time he did it without appearing personally in front of the camera.

He pulled the Americans' nerves as taut as they could go, insulted them and played them for fools, and he did not pass over even what appears here to be a political bargaining attack of last resort, in an attempt to free "hostage" Jonathan Pollard from prison. He returns to Israel after reinventing himself, not for the first time, now in the role of a peacemaker who fought tooth and nail up to the last minute.

It is Netanyahu again, and once more we did not know he was like this.