Netanyahu and Obama: A Risky Tug-of-War

“In the Middle East, a pessimist is an optimist with experience.” By quoting this saying, Ehud Barak, Israeli Minister of Defense, asserted that he, personally, preferred a Churchill-like approach in which “the optimist sees an opportunity in every difficulty.” Are we today witnessing an “opportunity” to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? There is no shortage of difficulties, but the prospect remains remote.

President Obama, on the strength of his success with health care reform, has decided to get involved in bringing Israelis and Palestinians back on the path to negotiations, which have been blocked for more than a year, through “indirect talks.” But, for the moment, this method has resulted in more of a tug-of-war between Barack Obama and Benyamin Netanyahu than a revival of dialogue in the region.

The American president simply asked the Israeli prime minister to “freeze” the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of course, tactically, this request will restore some of the United States’ prestige in the eyes of a fraction of Palestinians and in the Arab world. And although it often seems very wise, it won’t necessarily advance the peace process. This is because, technically, the United States doesn’t have the means to put pressure on Israel. The country is today less dependent on foreign military supplies, whether from France pre-1967 or America since then, due to having developed its industrial capacity in this sector. Furthermore, financial pressure is increasingly difficult for the U.S. to apply, as the portion of American aid to the Israeli budget has been steadily shrinking. In addition, Israel knows that its alliance with the U.S. cannot be shaken by simple tensions, even if the security concerns of both countries might occasionally diverge. This particular divergence is not the first in the history of relations between the two countries, without going back to the 1956 Suez Crisis.

However, asking for a “settlement freeze” results in the creation of a prerequisite for any resumption of talks. Arab states, meeting last weekend in Libya, publicly displayed their solidarity with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the issue. This was to be expected. But the Israeli prime minister’s margin for maneuvering in domestic politics is extremely narrow. Netanyahu remains in power as the head of a fragile coalition made up of several small far-right parties, and he can do nothing but reiterate his refusal to freeze construction in East Jerusalem. During a visit to Washington last March, he boldly restated his credo that “Jerusalem is not a settlement, but the capital of Israel.” And even if the tone is harsher, he hasn’t distanced himself from the position of most of his predecessors since 1967 on this issue either, whether Labour, Likud (right) or Kadima (center-right).

The announcement of the completion of 1,600 homes in Rama Shlomo, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, has been taken by the Americans as a provocation, having taken place in the middle of a visit by Vice President Joe Biden to Israel. But the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was quick to state that these neighborhoods, incorporated into Israel in 1967, are “home to nearly half of the city’s population” and will remain incorporated even after a peace agreement is eventually reached. Moreover, Netanyahu was right when he stated that there had never been any real U.S. pressure for the cessation of construction in East Jerusalem. With the exception of the Gaza Strip after the evacuation of 8,000 Israeli settlers in 2005, the population in what Israel considers “settlements” has grown steadily, even if they are considered illegal in the eyes of the United Nations, as Israel is considered to be an occupying force in the region. The Israeli settlements actually comprise of close to 300,000 inhabitants in the West Bank, roughly 190,000 in East Jerusalem and more than 19,000 in Golan Heights. This makes it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to form a Palestinian state that would have but a fraction of the West Bank, a symbolic part of Jerusalem, and no connection to the Gaza Strip, which is still controlled by Hamas.

Netanyahu nevertheless takes a risk. On the one hand, the Americans, with the exception of George W. Bush, have never really ceased in their calls for Israel to stop its settlement, much like the rest of the international community. But the conditions have also changed since the death of Yasser Arafat, Palestine’s historic leader, considered by Washington to be a terrorist who, in their eyes, was no longer possible to negotiate with. Americans and Europeans have given stronger support to his successor in the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. But, more importantly, the situation in the Gaza Strip, still under the control of Hamas, could at any moment become explosive once again. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is also trying to profit from Israel’s diplomatic troubles with the U.S. and European countries. The end of the oldest conflict in the contemporary world won’t happen tomorrow. Unless, that is, these problems create a new opportunity. For the moment, Netanyahu and Obama are engaged in a dangerous tug-of-war.