Erecting a false barrier

Editorial

The Arab world is roiling, according to media reports, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to take some of the pressure off of Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank.

As Clinton clarified after leaving Jerusalem, the Obama administration is not changing its position on settlements, merely trying to encourage Israel to move in the "right" direction. Earlier this year, Clinton expressed the administration's position as seeking "a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions."

Last weekend in Israel, Clinton said that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's offer of restrained construction in the settlements was the best offer any Israeli government had made on the subject. The Arab world, which seems to have no graver issues to confront than the construction of granny flats and in-law suites in this tiny corner of the world, reacted with outrage.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League's secretary-general, called the reports a "slap in the face" by Israel to the Americans and demanded that Clinton and Obama redouble their pressure on Israel.

If the Netanyahu government did "slap" the Obama administration for demanding concessions before even sitting down at the negotiating table, it is hardly undeserved. The massive majority of American Jews who supported Obama in the election are slack-jawed at his seeming keenness for the Arab position vis-à-vis Israel. Those who remain credulous suggest Obama is crazy like a fox, giving the impression of breaking away from Israeli-American "special relationship" in order to get the Arabs on side for what will be a fair deal for both sides in the end. Only time will tell.

But the fact that the Arab side would demand a freeze to all settlement expansion before sitting down at a negotiating table is a symptom of the madness of this conflict, when the Palestinians themselves cannot even guarantee a freeze on terrorists detonating themselves among Israelis.

The focus on settlements as the issue is nonsensical. Among the anti-Zionist intellects who have visited British Columbia recently, both the British journalist Ben White and the American Norman Finkelstein contend that Israel, by building or expanding settlements in the West Bank, has effectively eliminated any hope of a two-state solution. Their contention is that the settlements have so divided the territories that there remains no hope of developing a feasible, contiguous nation in the land Israel is prepared to give up.

One has to wonder what vacuum the anti-Zionists have been living in for the past 40 years. Israel has shown much good faith in negotiations and, when their partners actually desired peace, Israel has demonstrated a preparedness (in Sinai and Gaza) to abandon settlements in exchange for the faint hope of peace. This worked sometimes (with Egypt) and famously didn't work other times (with Hamas in Gaza). Despite the historical evidence that Israel will go to painful lengths to seek peace, the Arab world insists on pointing to West Bank settlements as the major impediment to peace.

The Palestinians now will not sit down to talk peace with Israel until there is a freeze on settlement building or expansion – and many in the world believe they are justified in doing so. But settlements, like borders, the fate of Jerusalem, refugees, compensation and all the myriad issues surrounding this conflict are matters for the negotiating table and not, as the Palestinians and their allies are convincing people, a matter to be decided before any negotiations begin. Indeed, settlements are one of the few cards Israel actually holds. Given that Israel only wants one thing in return – peace – any items that Israel might be willing to give up in the negotiation process must be part of a comprehensive agreement. Singling out one item as a prerequisite to even sitting down is presumptuous beyond belief from a "partner" that has not demonstrated genuine good faith in delivering the one thing Israel requests in return: peace.

If only the world were as outraged at Palestinian roadblocks to peace – like the continuing incitement to kill Jews by Arab media, religious figures and school curricula, for instance – as they are about contrived crises like settlements, this conflict might have ended peacefully long ago.

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