Benjamin Netanyahu's great achievement in his first hundred days as prime minister has been to define the Israeli consensus, circa 2009. With his speech at Bar-Ilan University, in which he endorsed a two-state solution but imposed strict conditions for its implementation, and in subsequent pronouncements further clarifying Israel's red lines, Netanyahu succeeded in doing what Ariel Sharon achieved before him: combine elements of left and right in fashioning a centrist position that speaks for a large majority of Israelis.

In one respect, Netanyahu's achievement is greater than Sharon's: While Sharon was forced to break away from the Likud and form his own party, Kadima, to implement his vision, Netanyahu has succeeded in transforming the Likud itself into Israel's leading centrist party.

Netanyahu has implicitly accepted the left's arguments against permanent occupation, with its dangers to Israel's demographic balance and international standing. At the same time, he remains a faithful exponent of the right's arguments against the dangers of a terrorist state minutes from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport.

Netanyahu's new policy marks the first time that an Israeli government has responded to Palestinian preconditions for a final status agreement – including a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and acceptance of the "right of return" – with preconditions of its own. And those preconditions reflect the Israeli consensus.

First, the demand for a demilitarized Palestinian state. For Israelis across the political spectrum, the unavoidable conclusion of the last bitter nine years of suicide bombings and rocket attacks is that the Palestinian national movement – in its secular or religious variations – cannot be trusted to restrain itself from attacking Israeli population centers. The demand for demilitarization, then, is one of the inevitable outcomes of the Palestinian assault against Israel following Israel's offer to create a Palestinian state in 2000.

So is the Israeli demand that the Palestinian national movement recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The recurring claims in the Palestinian media and schools and mosques to the effect that there was no ancient Jewish presence in the land of Israel, no temple on the Temple Mount, no Holocaust, have created a perception among Palestinians that the Jews are not an indigenous people but colonizers, crusaders, inventors of their own history. Recognizing the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in part of the land that Jews and Palestinians share is, therefore, a necessary precondition for transforming Palestinian attitudes.

The Jewishness of Israel is often interpreted abroad in religious terms. Even some of Israel's friends make that mistake: A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal, for example, legitimized Israel's right to define itself as a Jewish state by noting that England too has a state religion. For Israelis, though, a Jewish state is generally understood more in national than religious terms. (For example, the Law of Return, which insures automatic citizenship for any Jew coming home, defines a Jew in a non-halachic national category.)

It is certainly true that Israeli society needs to begin a discussion about the place of non-Jews in Israeli identity – about "who is an Israeli." But that is an internal Israeli issue, and Arab nations, including the Palestinians, have no right to interfere in that conversation. In its relations with the Middle East, Israel must insist that the Jewishness of the state be accepted, as proof that the Arab world is no longer committed to undermining Israel's legitimacy.

The final red line defined by Netanyahu is preserving a united Jerusalem under Israeli rule. A majority of Israelis agree, but not necessarily for the historical reasons cited by Netanyahu. Were Israelis to become convinced that redividing Jerusalem would end the conflict and win genuine recognition and legitimacy for a Jewish state in the Arab world, a majority would almost certainly be willing to pay the price. In practice, though, very few Israelis believe that redividing Jerusalem at this stage of the conflict will bring peace. Instead, most Israelis know that sharing Jerusalem with a Palestinian government that rejects the legitimacy of the Jewish presence in the city would lead to far worse conflict than we experience today. And redividing Jerusalem at a time when Hamas is ascendant risks the unbearable scenario of "sharing" the Holy City with a jihadist-run Palestine.

For practical if not ideological reasons, then, Netanyahu speaks for most Israelis in insisting on a united Jerusalem under Israeli rule.

Netanyahu's achievement in redifining the Israeli consensus could have significance beyond domestic political considerations. If relations with the Obama administration worsen in the coming months, Washington will find itself confronting an Israeli government that speaks for the mainstream. The fact that even Kadima cannot object to the Netanyahu doctrine means that the prime minister's only real opposition is likely to come from the right. And that will only strengthen Netanyahu in any confrontation with Washington.

Yossi Klein Halevi is senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center.