Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is in Washington today and he will meet with President Obama early this evening at the White House. It would be fascinating to hear what they have to say to each other. Because even though the health care debate, Afghanistan and other stories have pushed the Israel-Palestine question off the front pages in the US, it’s hard to see where Netanyahu hasn’t gotten the US to cave on the critical issue of settlements.
A brief review is helpful.
Going back four decades (with the limited exception of the second Bush administration), US governments have opposed Israel’s settlement policies on the West Bank. (Indeed, a confrontation centered in part over the settlements issue helped bring down the Shamir government in the early 1990s.) This continues to be the Obama administration’s position. But earlier this year they had gone well beyond this. The clear import of their statements in the spring was that they intended to force the matter, insist that the Israelis halt settlements as a way to restart peace negotiations — a stance then given added credibility by President Obama’s soaring popularity.
There was a lengthy back-and-forth over the course of the spring and summer in which Netanyahu agreed to a limited and temporary slow-down of settlement activity. But the upshot was clear: no cessation of settlement building. The Obama administration’s general position remains clear — as Secretary Clinton made clear in her fence-mending trip to Cairo last week. But in effect the Netanyahu government has forced the Obama White House to change its position and acquiesce in continued settlement building.
This is certainly the perception of the Israeli government: that it rolled the White House. And Netanyahu has been emboldened by Obama’s weakened position in the US.
As Daniel Levy argues here, proceeding to a confrontation over the settlement issue was not the only or perhaps even the preferable choice. But what the White House has done, which is essentially to allow the Netanyahu government to set the terms of a new discussion of settlements, is probably the worst.
It’s a very unwelcome development for anyone who believes in a strong Israel and the prospect of peace in the region.
