Meretz USA President Lawrence Lerner and Chairman Theodore Bikel declare: Netanyahu’s speech was a wasted opportunity

Prime Minister Netanyahu's June 14 speech at Bar-Ilan University might be seen as an attempt to move the Middle East an agonizingly small step forward towards peace. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's address, by and large, was a wasted opportunity for Israel to take the initiative and reenergize the dangerously dormant peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Netanyahu is to be congratulated for his sorely belated acceptance of the principle of Palestinian statehood. The import of this statement from a long-time supporter of Israeli control over the West Bank marks a further weakening of the annexationist doctrine and should not be underestimated.

Sadly, however, the entire remainder of Netanyahu's address either evaded the key issues on the diplomatic agenda or threw up new obstacles in the way of a peaceful resolution.

On settlement construction, Netanyahu recycled the insufficient Israeli promise not to create new settlements, while clearly failing to order a building freeze in the existing settlements, and strongly suggesting that so-called "natural growth" there would continue. To add insult to injury, Netanyahu did not even bother to repeat Israel's outstanding promise to dismantle the dozens of supposedly wildcat settlement outposts in the West Bank.

Netanyahu also took care to eviscerate the vision of future Palestinian statehood. By insisting that Jerusalem, West and East, would eternally remain under exclusive Israeli control, he essentially emptied his new-found acceptance of the two-state solution of any practical meaning.

Netanyahu's speech did offer a number of welcome points. The Prime Minister devalued his own plan for "economic peace", for example, acknowledging that his program was a far cry from a true political settlement.

But the Israeli Prime Minister failed time and again to demonstrate that he has the stuff to lead toward such a goal.

Rather than agreeing to share the responsibility and burden of peacemaking with Israel's neighbors, he insisted on casting Israel as the completely innocent victim, and the Palestinians as the source of all hostility. Netanyahu was thus explicit in rejecting the idea that Israeli occupation of the West Bank and four decades of settlement activity there was a major source of tension. And he arrogated to the Jewish people the title to all of the "Land of Israel", reducing Palestinians to a foreign presence, an interloping nation that would be tolerated, not truly accepted.

One speech, of course, does not a policy make, and the proof of Mr. Netanyahu's intentions will be judged by his actions, and those of his allies, over the weeks ahead. Should the Prime Minister follow up on his speech with bold new moves towards peace, such as freezing settlement and declaring Jerusalem negotiable, then his demands of the Palestinians - including the recognition of the Jewish people's right to statehood, as provided under the Geneva Initiative - can be seen as part of a tough, opening bargaining position.

But - and this is far the more likely scenario - if Mr. Netanyahu is determined to go no further than he did in this speech, then his Bar-Ilan address should be seen as an inadequate attempt to ease the growing pressure on his right-wing government, not a statesmanlike announcement of a new diplomatic direction.