Israel Update for March 2010

However Netanyahu also told the Vice President that he should be more mindful of the politically risky actions he has taken in response to the American demand that all settlement construction be halted. He noted that the Civil Administration which oversees Jewish affairs in Judea and Samaria has issued more than 400 stop-work orders and confiscated over 40 pieces of heavy machinery used by contractors since the Israeli building ban went into effect the end of November. This occurred despite strong protests from many of Netanyahu's political backers. He also noted that 11 structures and building foundations have been demolished, despite furious protests from Jewish residents who see this as feeding Muslims hopes and expectations that over 350,000 Jews will be uprooted from their homes as part of any final peace settlement with Israel.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton added fuel to the fire by terming the Interior Ministry announcement "an insult" to America, adding that Israel needed to make the current building ban permanent and halt all construction in the eastern half of Jerusalem. This came as Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to America, sent out a memo saying diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel are more strained now than they have been since the mid 1970s, when the Israeli government resisted American pressure to evacuate IDF forces from the Sinai peninsula, captured during the 1973 Yom Kippur war that began when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on its holiest day with full Soviet backing.

A Little Backtracking

As violent Palestinian protests spread to several portions of Jerusalem, Biden seemed to grasp that the American administration might be adding to the unrest by making a mountain out of a molehill. On his last full day in the country, he delivered a speech before students at Tel Aviv University that Israeli leaders characterized as quite friendly. He justified his anger over the home building announcement by stating "Quite frankly folks, only a friend can deliver the hardest truth." But then he added that "American support for Israel is not just an act of friendship; it's an act of fundamental national self-interest on the part of the United States, a key component to our broader efforts to secure this region and a wider world, as well as our own security."

The Vice President said he fully appreciates Israel's apprehension to take additional risks for peace after its military withdrawal from South Lebanon in May 2000 and Gaza Strip evacuation in August 2005 were met with "rockets as a reward." Biden also spoke of "the special connection to Israel" felt by American Jews, and said the Obama government expects indirect American mediated peace talks to begin soon, despite the Israeli Interior Ministry's ill-timed housing announcement.

President Obama himself seemed to realize that things were getting out of hand. He made a rare appearance on the Fox News network where he averred that "Israel is one of our closest allies on earth." He also noted that "the Israeli people have a special bond with us and it's not going to go away," although he added that "friends are going to disagree sometimes" and that the Israeli building announcement "was not helpful" to American efforts to re-start the stalled peace process.

Political analysts said the President was partly reacting to strong criticism of his approach to Israel over the past year which appeared mid month in both the normally left of center Washington Post and the more right wing Wall Street Journal. The Post editorial laid the blame for deteriorating US-Israeli relations squarely on the President's shoulders, saying "It has been startling, and a little puzzling, to see Mr. Obama deliberately plunge into another public brawl with the Jewish state." The paper added that this will hardly help persuade the Palestinian Authority to return to the negotiating table. The Journal editorial was even more pointed, maintaining that "If the Obama Administration opts to transform itself, as the Europeans have, into another set of lawyers for the Palestinians, it will find Israeli concessions increasingly hard to come by."

Several members of Obama's own Democratic Party also voiced criticism of his dealings with Israel. Representative Gary Peters from Michigan said, he hoped "the administration will end its unnecessary denunciations of Israel and will instead turn its focus to working with Congress to finally enact strong sanctions on Iran." Former Democratic Party vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, now a registered Independent, joined with Republican Senator John McCain to state on the Senate floor that "the American relationship with Israel is one of the strongest, most important, most steadfast bilateral alliances we have in the world."

PM Netanyahu met earlier the same day with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner, thanking them for their "constant support and unflagging friendship." He added that although "the challenges we face are immense, our will and our partnership is also immense."

However a substantially different tone was adopted by a senior American military leader. Testifying before a Senate committee just days after the acrimonious Biden visit to Israel, General David Petraeus, the army's Central Command chief, alleged that "Israeli government intransigence" was "harming US interests" in the Middle East. Adopting words that some in Israel saw as clearly anti-Semitic, he added that this supposed "intransigence" could contribute to future American military casualties in the region. Some analysts said this was yet another worrying sign that the Obama administration may be backing away from fully supporting Israel in its ongoing conflict with Iran, with the consent of at least some senior military leaders.

Peace Talks On Hold

Joe Biden asserted that the ill timed Israeli apartment building announcement might prevent the Palestinians from returning to the peace table. This came after Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the PA "can't go to the talks while Israel is building settlements." However Arab and Israeli media reports claimed that PA leader Abbas will order his negotiators to attend the indirect negotiations after a "suitable delay" designed to demonstrate their anger that more religious Israeli Jews will be living not far from the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site on earth, which Palestinian Muslims claim as exclusively their own.

During a speech before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee in New York, PM Netanyahu, countered that Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital city, not some "settlement" that might be torn down as a result of any final peace accord. In a passionate speech, he reviewed the deep, ancient and enduring Jewish connection to the holy city, gaining sustained applause from his mostly Jewish audience. The Premier later told his cabinet ministers that "establishing Jewish neighborhoods does not hurt Jerusalem's Arab residents, and is not at their expense." Israeli officials pointed out to their American colleagues that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas had sat down to discuss peace terms with the former Barak and Olmert governments while Jewish home building proceeded in the disputed territories and in all portions of Jerusalem, as was also the case when Yasser Arafat discussed the Oslo peace deal with the government led by Yitzhak Rabin.

It is precisely the Obama administration's repeated demands last year that Netanyahu halt all construction that has caused the Palestinians to dig in their heels, they aver, despite the fact that last November, the Premier did order a ten month halt to all home construction in all contested communities north and south of Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. They noted that Netanyahu's decision caused a major commotion with some of his coalition partners and many members of his own Likud party, even if it at least partially pleased the White House.