Obama gives Israel carte blanche on settlement construction

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Obama gives Israel carte blanche on settlement construction
By Chris Marsden
24 September 2009

Tuesday’s meeting in New York between Barack Obama, Israeli Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President
Mahmoud Abbas was widely regarded as little more than a photo
opportunity before it began, as well as something of a political
embarrassment for the US president.

It was both these things. But it also confirmed the degree to which
the Obama administration is prepared to back Netanyahu’s settlement
construction programme on the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to
dictate terms to the Palestinians.

The weeks leading up to the tripartite meeting were dominated by
Israeli announcements of a massive programme of housing construction
involving 3,500 units on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem,
contravening the official US position for a settlement freeze.

But after repeated official statements of opposition and diplomatic
visits by Middle East Envoy George Mitchell, Obama unceremoniously
dumped the demand for a freeze.

Assembling an hour late following separate discussions with Netanyahu
and Abbas, Obama spoke alone before engineering an awkward handshake
for the cameras. Obama did his best to give an appearance of strength.
There must be a “sense of urgency,” he said. “Simply put, it is past
time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward.”

But this was window dressing for his statement praising Netanyahu for
having “discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity.”
This, not a freeze, was now the basis for future negotiations.
Mitchell would meet next week in Washington with teams sent by
Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama said, after which Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton would report back to him by mid-October.

Obama also chastised the Arab regimes along lines welcome to Tel Aviv,
stating that it remained “important for the Arab states to take
concrete steps to promote peace.”

Abbas was praised for the PA’s “efforts on security,” a euphemism for
clamping down on opposition to Israel and hostilities directed against
Hamas in Gaza. But Obama followed this with criticism for not doing
more to stop incitement and to “move forward on negotiations.”

He insisted that both leaders show “flexibility and common sense and
sense of compromise.” This was a barely veiled repudiation of the PA’s
insistence on a halt to settlement building and discussions on the
final status of East Jerusalem as the basis for negotiations, as
formerly agreed on by the “Road Map” drawn up under President George
W. Bush.

Abbas, whose attendance at the summit was widely denounced in the West
Bank and Gaza, was effectively humiliated by Obama for his pains. To
save face afterwards, he insisted that during the meeting he had
“confirmed our positions and commitment to the Road Map and its
implementations” and “also demanded that the Israeli side fulfil its
commitments on settlements, including on natural growth,” having
“defined the occupied territories as the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.”

The renewal of negotiations “depends on a definition of the
negotiating process,” Abbas said, meaning that talks must be based “on
recognising the need to withdraw to the 1967 borders.”

Such declarations were rendered meaningless by Mitchell’s statement
following the meeting. He stated clearly that ending Israeli
settlements on the West Bank was not a precondition for talks. He told
the Jerusalem Post, “There are many obstacles. [Settlements] are one.
It’s not the only one. We are not identifying any issue as being a
precondition or an impediment to negotiation.”

Mitchell described the settlement freeze as one of several US
“requests” directed to both sides. Making clear that even the
provisions of the Road Map have been junked, he insisted that “neither
side should hold out for the perfect formula.”

Whatever Abbas’s public posturing, he has no alternative but to seek
to impose on an increasingly hostile Palestinian population whatever
rotten compromise is on offer from Washington and Tel Aviv.

Herb Keinon, writing in the Jerusalem Post, noted the interview given
by Abbas to Jackson Diel in the Washington Post this summer, in which
he had attempted to project a hard-line stance. Abbas had said then
that “he could wait until the US pressure on Israel led to the
collapse of the Netanyahu government,” Keinon noted.

Keinon writes that with no evidence of US pressure, let alone the
collapse of Netanyahu’s government, Abbas’s “waiting game”
paradoxically “also serves Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, as long
as—and this is indeed taking place—the Palestinians continue
institution-building: improving their ability to govern, improving
their security apparatus with the help of US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton,
and improving their economy.”

Keinon here clearly identifies the role that the PA is expected to
play and is, in fact, already playing—that of a proxy police force
acting under the direct instructions of the US and Israel.

The Israeli delegation could not restrain itself from crowing over the
outcome of the summit. Following his discussions with Obama, when
asked by reporters what was meant by “restraint,” Netanyahu replied,
“Ask the Americans.”

The Palestinians had agreed “to renew the negotiations without
preconditions,” he insisted. What was now being decided was only “how
the discussions will be held, within what framework and how they will
be characterised.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of the far-right Ysrael Beiteinu
said that the meeting had proved peace negotiations could resume
without giving in to Palestinian preconditions. He told the press of
his friendly exchanges with Abbas and chief Palestinian negotiator
Saeb Erekat. He said that he expected the Palestinians to withdraw
their petition to the International Criminal Court in The Hague
regarding Israeli Defence Forces war crimes during Operation Cast
Lead, the Israeli assault on Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009.

Netanyahu’s religious party coalition allies, Shas, gave him fulsome
support. Interior Minister and Shas Chairman Eli Yishai declared that
the Palestinians’ “sole aim is to entrench themselves in harmful
positions in order to improve, through conflict, agreements that they
themselves have trampled on…. The prime minister’s steadfast
perseverance removed another layer from the Palestinian mask.”

Likud Knesset members (MKs) praised Netanyahu and even his right-wing
critics within the party—several of whom had visited a settlers’
protest tent against a settlement freeze in Jerusalem prior to the
summit—professed satisfaction at its outcome.

MK Ofir Akunis said the summit “proves construction in Judea and
Samaria [the West Bank] will continue alongside the diplomatic talks….
It’s now clear that the international community has far more esteem
for a strong government that insists on Israeli interests.”

MK Tzipi Hotovely boasted that “Israel doesn’t have to prove to the
world anymore that it is willing to take steps for peace. We can say
that we tried everything and we will no longer make any concessions.”

Haaretz’s diplomatic affair correspondent Akiva Eldar pronounced a
damning verdict on the degree to which Obama’s agenda is now so openly
dictated by Netanyahu, Likud and the Israeli far right. He asked, “So
what if Obama says the time has come to move the peace process
forward? His chatter make[s] as much an impression on Netanyahu as the
threats issued by the Labour Party rebels. [Likud
minister-without-portfolio] Benny Begin and Yesha settlement leader
Pinhas Wallerstein scare him more than that lefty Obama and his few
friends in Israel.”

But Obama’s apparent impotence before Netanyahu cannot be so easily
dismissed. It is a reflection of the fact that he shares Israel’s
agenda in large measure. His primary concern in seeking “final status”
negotiations with the Palestinians is to help secure Arab support for
a broader agenda for securing US hegemony over the oil-rich Middle
East, centred on efforts to curtail Iran’s role as a regional power.

Whereas, to this end, Obama would like Israel to make a few more
concessions to the Palestinians, he requires above all Israel’s
support as a steadfast regional ally in his conflict with Tehran. With
the United Nations summit dominated by US demands for additional
sanctions against Iran, Netanyahu told the media that Iran was also a
major subject of his own discussions with Obama. “The Iranian issue
overshadows everything,” he said.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/isra-s24.shtml

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