Freeze and Courage: The Importance of the American Proposal

Yesterday, an experienced minister told me that he doesn’t find sense in Barack Obama’s proposal that the U.S. support the stationing of Israeli soldiers on the Jordan River. Go out and learn, he claimed, that if Israel were interested in such a commitment, it would have already yielded on the Jordan Rift Valley, before the negotiations even began.

Not Israel. This American commitment is not conditional on a counter-agreement from the Israeli side to give up Petza’el and Argaman.* This is a floor precondition, so that whatever the final agreement will be, the United States must understand that the Israeli Army has to stay on the river in order to prevent terror alignments and weapon transfers from the East Bank to the West Bank. What’s bad in that?

One can argue that the American administration will not necessarily honor the commitment being given now under the condition of political distress, when Obama is in need of calm, as he faces the congressional midterm elections in November. It may be so, but experience teaches us that American governments honor commitments they give to Israel.

However, there are deviations. The fact is that Obama hasn’t taken on George W. Bush’s obligation to recognize the settlement blocks in practice. And this is irritating.

Therefore, Benjamin Netanyahu will do better if he demands that the Obama administration recognize all the commitments of previous administrations in the process of the negotiations with George Mitchell. Such continuity is common in democratic regimes. Again, however, one can say that out of the general “yes,” a smaller “no” can be heard; in other words, Israel’s reliance on a commitment to recognize the settlement blocks makes it clear that America will ask Israel to efface any settlement beyond them.

It’s just that when America declares this and following this an international discussion on the subject, the fact that the Americans recognize the settlement blocks will perhaps not suffice for the Likud government, even though it will already be more than what Washington had in mind from the outset.

An Offer with Revenue

So why did I support, a week ago, the decision of Netanyahu not to reinstate the building freeze in the settlements? Because the 10 months of the freeze were a unilateral gesture of Israel. She gave, she took, and had she not done this, Netanyahu would lose his credibility in the eyes of the whole world.

But now comes an American proposal with a full basket of compensations, including a commitment not to demand the third freeze and veto any one sided establishment of a Palestinian state in the U.N. In the depth of his heart, every Israeli knows that this is more than could have been possibly expected in the process of Ehud Barak’s and Itzhak Molko’s negotiations in New York.

In terms of the power relations in the international arena, this could be called an achievement and a decent offer. At the end of the day, Israel does not have an interest in the American president always being the last dam of support, and — worse than this — the only one holding back international pressure from the Arab League and Europe. This is also an important consideration.

I would take the offer as it is. All the more so since the alternative scenario is that Washington will be forced to buy the silent agreement of the Palestinians with unprecedented obligations granted to Abu Mazen.

What kind of unprecedented obligations? Perhaps a commitment that the U.S. will support a return to the situation in 1967, meaning without land transfers, to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But this would also lead to a confrontation with the world over the future of Ramat Eshkol** and Pisgat Zeev.***

Before the Israeli ministers reach a verdict on this issue, they’d better re-read Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If.” Courage is not a one-way thing.

Translator’s Notes:

* Moshavs and Israeli settlements in the West Bank

** A neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, the first to be built in the city after the Six Day War in 1967

*** A residential neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem, established on land annexed by Israel after the Six Day War and considered an illegal settlement by the U.N., the I.C.J. and the E.U.