How Obama and Clinton Caved On Israel's Settlements

Israel's Illegal Immigrants: Jewish settlers in the illegal encampment of Migron in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

When Barack Obama was elected president precisely a year ago, his stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict seemed clear: Israel had to freeze its settlement building. Then talks could proceed. Little by little, like so much else in the Obama agenda, the clarity has given way to prevarication, backtracking and outright surrender.

In May, when his approval was in the 68% range and he was riding even higher on the the momentum of his speech to the Muslim world in Ankara and the anticipation of his speech on the Middle East from Cairo, Obama's first meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put Netanyahu in his place. Obama was sticking to his demand, Netanyahu looked humbled, Palestinians were hopeful.

That didn't last.

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By September, after the summer's tea-party and town-hall disinformation jamborees over health care reform and with Obama's approval down to the low 50s, Obama was moving away from the freeze and looking to just get Palestinians and Israelis at the same table. His rhetoric, too, had left the stratosphere and was skimming barely above marshy cliches: "It is past time to stop talking about staring negotiations; it is time to move forward." You think? Move forward he didn't.

By Last Saturday, Obama was out of the picture on the prospect of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, letting his secretary of state, the beleaguered Hillary Clinton, cave for him in one of the most craven displays of spinelessness so far witnessed with this young administration. She not only abandoned all calls for a settlement freeze. She accepted Netanyahu's belligerent refusal to accede to any American demands, characterized his decision to keep building settlements at a slower pace a show of "restraint" (the same word her predecessor used when Israel was killing civilians by the hundreds in a matter of days in Gaza in 2009 and in Lebanon in 2006). Then Clinton called Netanyahu's "restraint" on settlements "unprecedented." She was actually praising Netanyahu's contempt for American demands. If Israel were to end all settlement building, "unprecedented" would be the wrong word. Israel would merely, finally, be beginning to comply with international law, and even then just barely. Actual compliance would require dismantling the settlements, all of which are illegal according to the United Nations, not just the 100-odd "outposts."

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Clinton wasn't finished. "And," The Times noted, "she conspicuously avoided criticizing the demolition of Palestinians' houses in East Jerusalem, though she said her opposition to it had not changed." Some opposition. It's not the first time Clinton has displayed indifference toward the West Bank.

Arab states did their bit of criticism as Clinton made her way to Morocco, where she got chummy with that country's little dictator (who took a vacation from his endless vacations and made an effort to be in the country for a change, to attend the Forum on the Future)

When Clinton was asked about the criticism over her about-face, she resorted to child-care language--from a written statement: "I will offer positive reinforcement to either of the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective of reaching a two-state solution."

Positive reinforcement isn't what the two sides need at this point. A pliant, spineless mediator isn't what they need. What they need is pressure and demands backed up by threats: The United States bankrolls Israel's economy and military to the tune of $3 billion a year, and the Palestinian Authority to the tune of $815 million. Most of the aid to Israel is military. Much of it subsidizes Israel's military occupation of the West Bank.

The money can--and morally should--be withheld if Israel continues to refuse to budge on settlements.

But Netanyahu knows the money weapon isn't in the arsenal of an American president. At least not those who continue to defer to Israeli presumptions at the cost of American interest and Palestinian rights.

See Also:

• It's the Settlements, Stupid
• Israeli Settlements in the West Bank - Numbers, Statistics and Law
• Obama and Israel: Analysis of Barack Obama's AIPAC Speech
• Hillary Clinton's West Bank Blind Spot
• West Bank Settlements, Israeli Lies, American Rice-Throwing
• United Nations Resolution 446 (1979) on Israel's Illegal Settlements