MIFTAH
Thursday, 28 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

US President Barack Obama was loud and clear. "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop," he said during his June 4 policy speech at Cairo University.

If it were not for, according to a January 2008 Congress report, the $3.1 billion in foreign aid the US doles out to it each year, Israel just may have told Obama to "shove it" right from the start. But, given the heavy dependency Israel has on America, Israel's government decided to apply a much more subtle, slower pressure on the US to comply with its demands, appealing to their sense of humanity. Hence, the term "natural growth" versus "expansion" and "communities" versus "illegal settlements".

It is quite amazing just how tenacious Israelis really are. President Obama has recruited his Secretary of State, his special Middle East envoy and numerous spokespersons to repeat what he made very clear from the start about Israel's illegal settlements. He even managed to get some European countries like France on board. Israel will not have it though, sending over Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Washington and volleying George Mitchell back and forth over the simple concept of a settlement freeze. Now Israel is claiming the two allies are growing closer and closer to an agreement on the settlements, which would ostensibly allow for the completion of "advanced construction" (that is, construction that is too far ahead to be halted) in two West Bank settlements -- Kiryat Sefer and Betar Illit, which totals 700 buildings with over 2,000 apartments.

It's funny how advanced construction only applies to Israeli construction. When Israel bulldozes a Palestinian home to the ground, it is not only "advanced" but has been inhabited for years with people, furniture, personal belongings and priceless memories. Israel often says it demolishes the home on grounds of its illegal construction. What about an entire settlement built on illegally confiscated land much less a structure without a proper license? Licenses, which by the way Israel does not easily grant to Palestinians. The paradox is too stark not to mention.

However, the point here is not only Israel's audacity but the opportunity that could be missed if Israel squirms out of this obligation as well. It must be acknowledged even by the harshest of critics, that Barack Obama is the best hope the Palestinians have had in a long time in any American president. He is sticking to his guns, at least in words where settlements are concerned. He has been slashed by right wing Israelis who accuse him of being pro-Palestinian (as if this were a disease) and he has endured pressure from pro-Israel groups in his own country who think settlements are none of his business.

In anyone's book, $3.1 billion a year makes it his business. The question now is whether Obama and his administration will literally put their money where their mouth is and force Israel to accept their terms. To the average layman, it looks quite simple. If Israel continues to defy Obama's call for a settlement halt, the US has only to do one thing: turn down the gushing faucet of greenbacks flowing into Israel's coffers in foreign aid and therefore stunting the growth of these colonies even the American government considers illegal.

We all know, however, that this is easier said than done. Israel has grown accustomed to getting its way with the US and is not about to stop now. Having Mr. Obama breathe down its neck is something it is not used to. As a defense, Israel counters with the overused argument of "Well, the Palestinians haven't made any gestures. Make them move first." What has been lost from the big picture is that the Palestinians have been stripped of their legitimate right to resort to international legitimacy as their most solid argument. Nobody listens to them when they say all settlements are illegal and must be dismantled, citing the UN Security Council resolutions to prove it. Even if the UN were an option, it has become so neutralized where the Palestinians are concerned that reference to it is no more than a technicality.

Instead, Palestinians are forced to sit back and wait for President Obama, the only ray of hope left, to get tough on Israel in the hopes that he can simply "freeze" construction. There is no talk of dismantlement, unless it is about outposts which Israel so graciously call "illegal" and which basically comprise of a few diehard ideological settlers who still cling to the notion of "Eretz Israel".

Still, President Obama has the good intentions of wanting to solve the conflict and it seems he knows what must be done for this to be achieved. In his June 4 speech, not only did he mention the settlements and their need to stop, he acknowledged the 60 years of displacement of the Palestinians and their need for a homeland. Thankfully, President Mahmoud Abbas has taken a sound strategic stance not to return to bilateral agreements before Israel halts all settlement construction, which compliments Obama's efforts and truly serves the Palestinians' best interests.

Now Mitchell is back and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is to arrive today, July 27. No one expects Israel to hand a settlement freeze to the Americans on a silver platter. But wouldn't it be nice if President Obama finally says enough is enough and warns Israel that if it does not heed its call, big brother will not be so generous in handing out its allowance?

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.

 
 
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