MOVING BEYOND A SETTLEMENT FREEZE
By Geoffrey Aronson
The administration of Barack Obama is setting the stage for the resumption of talks, if not necessarily formal negotiations, between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.Washington hopes that a tripartite fall meeting of President Barack Obama, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas will mark the inauguration of a new phase in Obama's Middle East policy.
If Obama succeeds, the negotiations may be headlined by an Annapolis-like summit conference that Russia and others are vying to host, leading to a resumption of bilateral talks aimed, according to U.S. officials, at "advancing a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in their own states with peace and security." To embark on this effort, however, Obama must move beyond the diplomatic effort led during the last three months by his special envoy George Mitchell to win from Israel the imposition of a complete cessation of settlement expansion in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and tangible demonstrations of normalization with Israel from the Arab world.
It was Obama's decision to place settlements at the heart of his administration's opening diplomatic effort. Highlighting settlements and Arab confidence building measures as the twin points of engagement was understood by the Obama team as the policy option most likely to impress upon Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the international community, the intention and the ability of the new American leadership to end occupation, create a Palestinian state, and normalize Israel's place in the region. Obama seized the policy initiative by declaring in Cairo "the illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." Washington's demand for a settlement freeze overshadowed Netanyahu's effort to focus on "economic peace" and the interwoven crises between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that dominated the agenda before Obama's inauguration. The new president won a quick affirmation from Netanyahu in support of the principle (if not the content) of a twostate solution and boosted Palestinian confidence that recognition of their oftrepeated demand for imposition of a settlement freeze was at last in sight.
Netanyahu's anticipated response to U.S. demands will not meet this test. Israel is prepared, at most, to impose a temporary moratorium on certain types of settlement expansion, an action similar to restrictions agreed to by Menachem Begin in 1977. It will complete more than 3,000 new dwellings in West Bank settlements, enough to increase the settler population of 500,000 by 12,000, and exclude East Jerusalem from any building limitations. Such an outcome, after months of high-powered U.S. diplomacy, risks being seen as conferring an ambiguous U.S. "stamp of approval" and further evidence of the inability of diplomacy to challenge the settlement enterprise. Despite the failure to win a credible suspension of all settlement activity, Obama still commands the international arena and he retains a powerful ability and interest in setting the terms of Arab-Israeli diplomacy. A vigorous American effort that supercedes the spurned demand for a comprehensive settlement freeze appears to be the White House's next move.
The Unrequited Demand for a Settlement Freeze
The complete cessation of all facets of settlement activity everywhere, defined by Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton as "a stop to the settlements. Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions," remains Washington's stated policy. This demand is the standard for success against which Obama's settlement policies is being judged, by those who wish the new president well and by others who want to empty Obama's two state vision, and the necessity of massive settlement evacuation, of real content.
Leading Arab commentator Abdul Rahman al Rashid noted in Sharq al Awsat on July 8, 2009,
"The battle to stop the [Israeli] construction of settlements is a personal battle for Obama, and one that will reveal whether the U.S. president is capable of dealing with the larger issues, such as [Israeli Palestinian] negotiations over territory, borders, Jerusalem, refugees and disarmament. This will also clarify whether Obama will be able to force the parties to follow through on whatever agreement they make. Everybody is monitoring the battle with regards to the Israeli settlements, and construction is ongoing. So long as settlement building continues under the pretext of expansion and vertical construction, nobody in the region will believe that Obama is capable of handling these weighty issues."
Obama is proving no more successful than his predecessors in winning a complete freeze, and he has been stung by Netanyahu's ability to re-frame Washington's demand as a challenge to Israel's presence in East Jerusalem. By the end of July,Washington found itself engaged in detailed discussions of the minutiae of settlement construction and expansion. U.S. negotiators asserted that the talks were aimed at closing settlement expansion "loopholes." Israeli leaders, initially stunned by Obama's demands, were also confident. They had concluded that Obama's "bark was worse than his bite." The potential for a crisis in relations over settlements had been averted and the evolving terms of a limited settlement moratorium were well within manageable limits. In a reflection of this cold-blooded Israeli view, Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote on August 14, "Defense Minister Ehud Barak was the honey trap and special envoy George Mitchell took the bait. . . . He is now negotiating over the [settlement moratorium's] timetable, the conditions, the numbers and the exit points."
Arab visitors to Washington from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia offered equally insistent advice about the shortcomings of the administration's pursuit of a settlement freeze, calling for renewed diplomacy on ending the occupation and creating a Palestinian state. In a July 31 press conference with Clinton, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal stated, "Incrementalism and a step by step approach has not and we believe will not achieve peace. Temporary security, confidence building measures will also not bring peace.What is required is a comprehensive approach that defines the final outcome at the outset and launches into negotiations over final status issues: borders, Jerusalem, water, refugees and security."
As the summer wore on Obama himself grew visibly impatient with seemingly interminable discussions on a settlement freeze that were now delaying the opening of much anticipated negotiations. Having declared the status quo "unsustainable," Obama was anxious to move off what he himself acknowledged was "the rut that we're in currently."
Beyond a Settlement Freeze
A meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas would be Washington's first achievement in moving beyond a narrow discussion of a settlement freeze to Obama's strategic objective of a final status agreement in which settlement evacuation stands to feature prominently. Israel's leaders are well aware that they will face this challenge. To meet it, they are continuing efforts begun by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to reach bilateral understandings with Washington on Israel's long-term security requirements in the West Bank and elsewhere. To this end, Netanyahu and Barak have presented their six point politicalsecurity agenda: recognition of the state of Israel, resolution of the refugee problem outside Israel, an end to Palestinian and Arab claims as part of the end to the conflict, effective demilitarization, and international recognition of the demilitarization arrangements. "As long as we unite behind these conditions," declared Netanyahu on July 28, "the chance of implementing them increases, because the international community respects a clear, solid, logical and just stance."
Alone among the participants, Abbas is conditioning a renewal of diplomatic contacts on a complete cessation of settlement expansion. He has asserted control over both the fractious Fatah movement and the moribund PLO and looks to polls that show improvement in the contest with Hamas. Now more than ever Washington and Abu Mazen believe that a "strengthened" Abu Mazen, without Hamas, is the key to effective Palestinian representation.
Nevertheless, Gaza's continuing instability and the associated failure to reconcile Hamas and Fatah loom large as obstacles to Obama's goal of a two-state agreement within two years. Even though Gaza has been overshadowed by Washington's diplomatic effort to win a settlement freeze, it remains the key focus of the Palestinian conflict with Israel, and the Hamas-Fatah split undermines Abbas' ability to negotiate effectively on behalf of all Palestinians. As the Obama administration moves from the issue of a freeze to broader talks on final status issues, it would do well to complement this process by promoting policies that address the unsustainable humanitarian and economic crisis in Gaza and encourage Palestinian political reconciliation.
