Having just guided legislation through the Knesset ‘legalising' the illegal: settler outposts on private Palestinian land; he has seemingly set in motion an unstoppable movement which, taken to its ultimate conclusion, could deprive Palestinians of every inch of their ancestral land and establish Israel, a state devoid of morality or conscience.

No wonder his President and Attorney General advised against it!

How does one get into the mind of the most extreme right wing figure ever to hold the reins of power in the State of Israel?

Born in 1949 he is the first Israeli Prime Minister to have been born in the State of Israel. Aged 17, in 1967 he fought in the six day war and was involved in many subsequent Israeli military operations.

Clearly this experience has formed the person we see today.

He believes in pre-emptive strikes. He looks upon negotiation as weakness. He understands military force to be the primary mark of the nation's strength. He appears not to trust anyone or rely on anyone.

It appears he uses military force as a political tool and relies upon the inculcation of fear in an ‘existential threat' to gain the support and ongoing loyalty of his citizens for the extreme measures he takes. (see speeches in the lead up to the 2015 Israeli elections).

What are the outcomes?

Peace talks

Peace talks since the 1990's have as their foundation the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.

These talks set the rough parameters for an eventual settlement of difference, outlined the issues that needed to be resolved and established a tentative timeframe. Netanyahu opposed the Oslo accords from the outset.

While it is true that Palestinians shared misgivings about some of the details, Netanyahu was and remains trenchantly opposed to an outcome which cedes to Palestinians territory which might resemble autonomous statehood. He has said he supports a ‘two-state' solution but refuses to enter talks in good faith that could bring about a just and peaceful solution.

The pro-Israel lobby continually bleats that the Palestinians have been offered peace but have never accepted it. While it is true that Palestinian leadership has let opportunities for progress slip, Netanyahu's attitude to the Oslo Accords makes clear that this accusation is false.

Under Netanyahu's leadership (he will soon become the longest serving Israeli Prime Minister in the nation's history) there has never been open good will shown towards a just outcome.

This situation also makes nonsense of insistence by the Australian government that the only way forward is for the two parties to enter direct negotiation.

How can the Palestinians, conflicted as they are in their own political leadership, negotiate with an oppressor who views negotiation as weakness? Continue reading

• George Browning is President, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network. He was formerly Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn.

At once it became tangible: anyone, in Israel or abroad, could see the manner in which Netanyahu gazes, when all is said and done - only internally, only within himself.

Anyone who listened to his speech about Hitler and the mufti - in which he essentially acquitted Hitler of hatching the notion of the Final Solution and laid the blame at the feet of the Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini - could discern, in a way that was naked of obstruction, the things that Netanyahu sees within himself: the virtually mechanical apparatus that enables him to erase the facts in order to change - with one quick cartwheel of the consciousness - the condition of occupation and oppression to one of persecution and victimhood.

Revealed, too, was the manner in which he casts his victimhood on reality, like one who casts a dense and hermetic net that offers no way out, no escape, not even to Netanyahu himself.

But this time, more so than in the past, it has become clear to what extent we, the citizens of Israel, are trapped, flailing, in this net of his.

For many years now, ever since he embarked on his journey to the prime minister's office, he has masterfully mixed and stirred the true dangers facing Israel with the echoes of Holocaust trauma.

Skilfully, with sharp flashes of rhetoric and overwhelming powers of persuasion, he has learned how to ensnare the majority of the Israeli population within a labyrinth constructed of echoes and the true facts of reality. Continue reading

• David Grossman is the author of Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years After Oslo.