The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks hinge on the question of settlements at this point, with the Palestinians and the international community wanting a temporary, 60-day freeze on construction. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering the request, but he wants certain guarantees from the Obama Administration in exchange.
Netanyahu “is demanding that US President Barack Obama reaffirm the commitments that were given by his predecessor George W. Bush to then prime minister Ariel Sharon,” the mass circulation Yediot Aharonot daily said.
“First and foremost among these, the American support for Israeli annexation of the settlement blocs as part of any final status arrangement,” the daily quoted Netanyahu as saying.
To convince his ministers to accept a moratorium on new construction in West Bank settlements outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem, Netanyahu is “trying to extract from the Americans unambiguous commitments,” the newspaper said.
Bush was the first President ever to give what amounted to tacit support to current settlement blocs in the West Bank. The Obama Administration has been resistant to this, and has supported a return to pre-1967 borders. It would be an enormous change in policy for Obama to support anything less than “a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
The other promise is that the Israelis will make no more extensions of the moratorium on building beyond the 60- to 90-day freeze. If you think that an entire Middle East peace deal can happen in the next two to three months, well then, you’d be gullible enough to accept Netanyahu’s demands.
The Arab League meets on Friday, and if nothing changes on settlements, they will probably back Mahmoud Abbas’ vow to shut down talks as a result. In a flash, everything will end. By the way, the smaller parties in Netanyahu’s coalition don’t even want to go ahead with the deal he’s laid out, even with all the concessions. The settler movement is running ads on TV against any deal. Here’s Jackson Diehl:
Netanyahu finds himself in a familiar bind. When he last led an Israeli government, in the late 1990s, he also came under crushing U.S. pressure to make concessions in an earlier round of peace talks. When he did so, his right-wing allies deserted him, while Israel’s left-wing parties refused to support him. His government fell, and he lost the subsequent election.
The same fate could befall Netanyahu if he accepts Obama’s offer. Right-wing parties in his coalition could turn against him — and the largest center-left opposition party is signaling that it will not back up the prime minister even though it supports the settlement moratorium. So the prime minister is unlikely to accept the deal with the U.S. unless he can persuade his coalition partners to go along.
That’s why he’s basically made an offer that Obama would be unlikely to accept. However, if talks fail on the settlement issue, the Labor Party would likely fall out of Netanyahu’s coalition. So I’m not sure he remains in change of Israel no matter what he does. We’re probably headed toward elections there, and chaos in Palestine, and no peace. Then again, that’s always the easy bet.
