Unsettling: Israel aims at Arab East Jerusalem (David Silverman/Getty Images)
Earlier this month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reflecting her administration's about-face on demanding that Israel freeze its settlements in occupied Palestine, was commending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his "restraint" on settlement activity.
This is how Netanyahu returned the compliment: A few hours after George Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, pleaded in person with a Netanyahu aid to stop construction in the Gilo settlement, Netanyahu's government approved 900 new housing units there. Gilo isn't just any illegal settlement. It's in Arab Jerusalem, the part of Jerusalem Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. If Netanyahu has his way, there's never going to be such a future state. He made the point again this week.
The snub was a double jab for Netanyahu--one in Palestinians' eyes, one in the Obama administration's eyes. Clinton's State Department replied with characteristic meekness: "State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "We find the Jerusalem planning committee decision to move forward the approval process for the expansion of Gilo, in Jerusalem, as dismaying." That's the best Clinton's iron tongue can do. Dismaying.
Obama's words came sharper, and by way of Fox News, which he'd been snubbing. "I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel's security. I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbors. I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous," Obama said. Very dangerous.
The question is, for whom, or for what? Netanyahu has already scuttled Obama's attempt to bridge so much as a negotiating gap to enable new talks. He didn't need to prove his point (he already has in the West Bank, adding hundreds of units to illegal settlements there in further displays of Clintonian "restraint").
The 900 new housing units are more than a jab. They're a provocation, the sort of provocation a Netanyahu predecessor, Ariel Sharon, was good at: It was Sharon who in September 2000, surrounded by hundreds of policemen in riot gear, marched on the Temple Mount, or Haram el-Sharif as Muslims know it (the Noble Sanctuary), the holiest Islamic site in Jerusalem, at a time when Muslims feared an Israeli takeover of the holy site and their destruction of the mosques on Haram el-Sharif. Tensions had already been intense. Sharon knew it. He went looking for confrontation. He got it. Riots broke out. Israeli police shot into crowds, killing four Palestinians. The West Bank and Gaza were aflame again. Even Israeli Arabs took to the streets. Thirteen Arabs were killed before it was over. It turned out to be a prelude for the second Intifada, which broke out that December when Yasser Arafat came away from the Camp David summit with President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak after rejecting the closest thing to a viable proposal for a Palestinian state since 1967.
No such proposal is anywhere in Netanyahu's plans. Yet a third intifada at this juncture looks unlikely: Palestinians are divided and subdivided. The leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is ready to call it quits. Hamas is in control of the open-air prison known as Gaza. And Israel, laying siege to it all, is everywhere calling the shots, even as far off as Washington, D.C.
So Netanyahu's provocation has the added dimension of being that of a prime minister fully aware that he has free rein, and can provoke again and again without fearing much by way of retaliation--not from a divided and demoralized Palestinian population, not from an American president whose approval rating is dipping below 50%, and certainly not from Hillary Congeniality Clinton.
Day by day, settlement by settlement, the two-state solution is being buried under Netanyahu's designs, unopposed except in words.
See Also:
- Obama-Netanyahu: Round 2 Is All Netanyahu
- Hillary Clinton's West Bank Blind Spot
- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Quitting Act
- Palestinian Authority, Never Authoritative, Is Near Collapse
- Obama and Israel: Analysis of Barack Obama's AIPAC Speech
Comments
You keep saying the settlements are illegal. Under whose authority? Israel won all this land back when the Arabs attacked them without provocation. It is Israel’s land. They want to build houses, golf courses, or anything else then fine. The REAL lesson is don’t pick a fight with Israel. Bad timing in history right now. You are going to lose.
Oh, I don’t know Mike. Under authority of international law? The United Nations? A couple dozen UN resolutions? Of course none of that counts for Israel, whose arrogance is a law unto itself. Must build those golf courses. Incidentally, can you point to a single war Israel has won since 1967? Even that one has proved to be a six-day victory ensuring four decades of hell.
You say: “Gilo isn’t just any illegal settlement. It’s in Arab Jerusalem, the part of Jerusalem Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. If Netanyahu has his way, there’s never going to be such a future state. He made the point again this week.”
Well, when was the last time the writer actually visited the area? Gilo is a Jewish neighborhood, an inherebt part of Western (Jewish) Jerusalem, with tens of thousands of apartments already built there, apartments no Israeli government, present, past or future, has ever expressed the least inclination to agree to tear down or give over to the Palestinians in any possible peace deal. The fact is, Israel has considered this specific area an integral part of Western (Jewish) Jerusalem and of Israel ever since it started to build there, a few decades ago. Someone here just woke up too late, mister.