Editorial
Israeli defiance on settlements issue
America and Quartet must stand tough against Netanyahu
The impunity with which Israel has regularly defied world opinion over the Middle East crisis is by now a truism that much of the world responds to in utter exasperation. Over the years, its encouragement of Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land has stalled any move toward a settlement. Add to that its erection of a wall designed to keep Arabs away from the settlers. Overall, the delaying tactics it has regularly adopted in the matter of arriving at a two-state solution have kept emotions alive, to a point where its own backers in the West now find themselves in a state annoyance. And matters are not helped at all by clear Israeli complicity in the murder of a Palestinian politician in Dubai recently. The recent expulsion of an Israeli diplomat in London by the British authorities over a forgery of British passports that would camouflage the killers is a broad hint of the levels to which Israel has stooped in defence of its questionable national interest.
While it would be naïve to argue that Israel is today in a state of siege within the broad international community, it will be reasonable to suggest that a plummeting of its warmth with the United States certainly places it in a tight corner. In recent weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has managed to upset just about everyone who matters in Washington. Even as American and Quartet envoys have sought to restart talks toward a resolution of the Palestine-Israel issue, Netanyahu's government has gone ahead with the job of continuing to build Jewish settlements in the annexed eastern part of Jerusalem. In the process, it has managed to anger President Obama, whose coolness toward a visiting Netanyahu in Washington was not lost on anyone. The Israelis' defiance over the settlement issue has drawn sharp criticism from Vice President Joe Biden and provoked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into warning them that the peace process is threatened by their actions. Obviously, the Israelis have not been overly worried because of the very large degree of influence they yet wield within the Jewish lobby in the United States. A prime instance of how long a shadow Israel still casts on US politics comes through the vigour with which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) defends Israel's actions in the Middle East.
Despite these facts, it is President Obama's firmness over the settlements policy that must be noted. Whether the US leader will eventually go soft on Israel is not clear. But if he does, he will risk putting his country to ridicule before Arab public opinion despite his professions of support for a Palestinian state. What must now be set in motion is a raft of measures aimed at compelling Israel to step back from its settlements policy in Palestine and especially in east Jerusalem. Those measures must include a sustained level of American toughness toward the Netanyahu government as well as coordinated, meaningful efforts by the Quartet to force Israel's climb-down from its present state of defiance. Any easing of the pressure will only embolden Israel in its pursuit of illegitimate expansion.
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