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Israel’s Hard-Right Turn That Wasn’t
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The Spectacle Blog
For 15 years and more, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conducted peace talks with Israel in the absence of a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now, it appears as likely as not that his newborn negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu — and their goal of agreement on a Palestinian state within a year — will expire because of Abbas’s refusal to talk in the absence of such a freeze.
The Palestinian president’s stand has frustrated a lot of people — including his own prime minister, Salaam Fayyad, and the president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, both of whom have said that the settlement issue should not be an obstacle to the negotiations. At a recent dinner in Washington, Fayyad pointed out that any building in the settlements during the next year would have no effect on the outcome of the talks or the future Palestinian state.
So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: “When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped,” he said. “If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?”
The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama — who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote.
This actually understates how stupid and counterproductive the Obama administration’s policy toward settlement construction has been. There might have been a way to finesse the settlement issue, along the lines that Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine has suggested:
This suggests the usefulness of an informal understanding, enforced by the US, that Israel can build modestly in “consensus areas” generally understood to be the likely subject of a land swap between Israel and a new Palestinian state. However, Israel must not engage in significant new land expropriation in the West Bank, incursions into Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, or building in the “E-1 corridor” that would cut Jerusalem off from the West Bank.
But the White House made this sort of compromise untenable back in March by throwing a hissy fit over housing construction in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish neighborhood just across the Green Line that is very much a ‘consensus area’ that will never be part of a Palestinian state. To be sure, Israel blundered in allowing the approval of new construction to coincide with a visit by Vice President Biden, but Biden’s reaction was so over-the-top that it made it extemely difficult for Abbas to entertain a compromise along the lines that Ibish proposes — the Palestinian president can’t be less pro-Palestinian than the Americans, after all.
If the White House wanted to intelligently apply pressure regarding settlements, they might focus in on genuinely problematic developments, like the foolish plan to convert a hotel in the heavily Palestinian east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah into apartments for Jewish families, and meanwhile ignore developments in Jewish neighborhoods like Ramat Shlomo, or Ramot and Pisgat Zeev (despite media convention, by the way, none of those Jewish neighborhoods are in “east Jerusalem” in any coherent sense of the phrase — they are north and northwest of the city center). But this would require a subtle understanding of the issues in play that this administration seems to lack.
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More Blog Posts by John Tabin
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/18/obamas-diplomatic-incompetence
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Curly Smith| 10.18.10 @ 7:29PM
Obama is incumbent only if the outcome isn't the desired outcome.
What? Obama said he wanted peace? Oh, yeah, and he said something about shovel ready jobs, driving the health care cost curve down, transparent government and all the rest of a virtually inexhaustible list of lies. He must have spoken truthfully about Israel given his overt hatred for Jews.
Alan Brooks| 10.18.10 @ 10:13PM
"I question Obama's alleged belief that Israel is a legitimate nation with the natural right to defend itself as it sees fit."
If this is so, then those such as Tim*; rightwing libertarians; and paleos; radical conservatives; etc, who hate Israel ought to rejoice that Obama is a fellow traveler.
bluecollarbytes| 10.18.10 @ 8:13PM
I question Obama's alleged belief that Israel is a legitimate nation with the natural right to defend itself as it sees fit.
Alan Brooks| 10.18.10 @ 10:19PM
"If this is so, then those such as Tim*; rightwing libertarians; and paleos; radical conservatives; etc, who hate Israel ought to rejoice that Obama is a fellow traveler."
Not to say the majority do, but more than just one or two who have blogged here-- starting with, say, Toddard and Daffy Kenward, and moving on to Tim*.
Merely for three examples. Those who are serious subscribers to AS can undoubtedly name more than only three-- but it is too depressing to think on: Israel is the universal national scapegoat of humanity.
Swear, I now wish I'd never heard of politics; it is an ugly business.
And it is a business, don't kid yourself that it isn't.
Dan Smith| 10.18.10 @ 8:48PM
While I appreciate the sentiment, if this is what passes for a pro-Israel editorial, it's time to close shop.
There is nothing foolish about building in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel. Jerusalem should no more be broken up than Washington DC should be broken up.
Franklin| 10.18.10 @ 9:24PM
I agree. Look what happened to Berlin.
David W| 10.18.10 @ 10:16PM
The Jews were there well before the Muslims (and the Christians). The Dome of the Rock Mosque was built on the ruins of a Jewish Temple (from Wikipedia - ...part of the Islamization of the Temple Mount on the site of the Second Jewish Temple which was destroyed during the Roman Siege....). The Muslims are the true occupiers.
Christopher Holland| 10.19.10 @ 1:27AM
Obama can always show how even handed he is by giving Manhattan back to the Indians. Buying prime real estate for some axes and beads was clearly a rip-off. Jews lived in Jerusalem well before that happened, so the Indians have a stronger claim for Manhattan than the Palestinians have for Jerusalem.
Darren White| 10.18.10 @ 11:12PM
Great article. Exposes the stupidity of the Obama administration that in effect, sabotaged the solution of land swaps between Israel and future Palestine. The settlement issue was never the core issue for settling the conflict. Palestinan and Arab rejectionism of Israel's right to exist is the core issue. Don't kid yourself.
Siegfried X| 10.19.10 @ 12:22AM
Also, Israel had a 10 month settlement freeze, yet Palestine waited until the last month to begin negotiations!
It almost seems that none of the players think that there is a chance of peace now, but this show is being put on to help Democrats in next month's US election. And in fact several countries have already said that, that the two month settlement freeze was timed so it wouldn't expire until after the election. That way Hillary can talk about what great progress is being made, and how peace is at hand.
Oldefarte| 10.19.10 @ 12:12PM
Whoever started this use of settlements as a bargaining agenda is immaterial, since the idea of it being a roadblock is moronic. Israel effectively was in the crosshairs [or the target] when this current administration took over in January 2009. As with our military operations in the middle east, the whole purpose of our foreign policy regarding Israel is for its destruction [and anyone believing otherwise is stupid and foolish]!!!!