The Obama administration has taken the unusual step of publicly rebuking Israel for the approval of 900 new homes on the West bank. A White House spokesman said the approval made its efforts to restart peace talks more difficult.
The statement has some force behind it. According to
Reuters, President Obama sent a personal envoy to Israeli PM Netanyahu asking him to block the approval by an Israeli government planning commission.
The settlements are a longstanding dispute between the Palestinians and Israel. An additional major issue, the eviction of large numbers of Palestinians from their homes on the basis of title reviews by Israeli courts, is another flashpoint between the US and Israel.
The net effect of these two issues has been a total end to meaningful peace talks. The subject now exists as a possibility, rather than a working proposition. The situation has reduced successive American efforts to restart the talks to largely diplomatic exercises.
Successive American administrations have become progressively more disenchanted with the Israeli position. America’s ability to be seen as a fair broker has been undermined by the perception of American support for Israel, which has been construed as a de facto acceptance of the settlement policies.
The last three US administrations have all failed to make any significant progress in the dispute.
The Obama administration, however, is apparently repositioning itself in the situation. The generational change in leadership in the US has brought with it several new foreign policy positions, notably with Russia and China. The US diplomatic service has also been acting as a force for change.
In previous administrations, the diplomatic service operated more as a press agency for the White House in public. Now, with Clinton at the helm, advice and public comment from the diplomats is taking a much tougher line with many of the deadwood relationships of the past.
The traditional Middle East policies, which have been a source of almost no positive results for the US in decades, are evidently getting more than a facelift.
While Israel is in a class well above the normal freeloading US regional ally, the fact is that a vanishing point of diminishing returns for the US has been reached. Unlike previous exercises, the concept of "promoting America's image in the Arab world" also has little or nothing to do with the current situation, which has so far been irredeemably unproductive and a waste of American effort. Several issues have got Israel offside with the Obama administration.
The evictions of Palestinians are the most dramatic case in point. These evictions are based on an Israeli court approval, but the legalities have drawn flak from lawyers globally. The regional perception is that a lot of “conspicuously Orthodox” Israeli developers have found a major cash cow, rather than a legitimate matter of addressing valid titles. The Palestinians are so infuriated that they haven’t budged from their demands on this subject.
(In practice, the process seems to involve establishing that an Israeli title preceded a Palestinian title. The legality of this is highly debatable, given that valid property title is based on legal transactions, not historical records.)
Obama’s unusual step of sending a personal envoy to Netanyahu regarding the 900 new homes is an indicator of the importance placed on achieving a credible starting point to negotiations. The apparent snub may indicate either a “go it alone” public relations exercise by Netanyahu or clumsy diplomacy, but it’s unlikely to be forgotten.
There’s one particularly valid point to the US position:
Why do a few houses have to take precedence over peace?
It’s not surprising the administration seems baffled by this logic.
