Obama's sole option: cut the aid and withdraw diplomatic support to Israel

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has said that relations between the two countries have entered their worst crisis for 35 years. When the Israeli government announced a plan to construct 1,600 housing units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem on the day of U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, the U.S. administration reacted with uncharacteristic anger.  Joe Biden, who was visiting the region in order to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, condemned the Israeli decision more than once and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used harsher language, describing the announcement as “insulting” to the United States.  Clinton spoke on the telephone to Netanyahu for forty-five minutes in order to rebuke him, demanding that Israel reverse its decision, commit itself to discussing final-status issues such as Jerusalem and the borders of a Palestinian state in negotiations, and undertake confidence-building steps, such as the release of Palestinian prisoners and an easing of the blockade of Gaza.

Despite the strong U.S. response to Israel, President Obama himself has remained silent about the issue.  He has not publicly mentioned the settlements since the speech which he gave to the Muslim world in Cairo last June, in which he called on Israel to stop all construction in the settlements.  Back then, it seemed that Obama supported the Palestinian Authority’s declared position that it will not enter into negotiations with Israel until Israel halts settlement construction. However, Obama’s refusal to back up his call with any concrete pressure on Israel or even to reiterate it was interpreted as a green light by Israel to continue with its settlement activities.  Obama made an embarrassing climbdown from his position on settlements in September, when he hosted a meeting between Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas that was nothing but a photo opportunity for Netanyahu.  Shortly afterwards, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, said that negotiations must take place without a halt to settlement construction.  Some may construe this to mean Israel could continue behaving with impunity.  To allow Obama to save face, it announced a “freeze” on settlement construction which did not include East Jerusalem and effectively meant that it could continue with the construction of settlements at the same pace as before.

It remains to be seen whether this latest crisis in relations between the U.S. and Israel will result in any genuine shift in US policy towards Israel.  There are no signs that Netanyahu will stop the new construction in East Jerusalem, as Hillary Clinton asked him to.  While he apologised for the timing of the announcement, after the conversation with Clinton he said that settlement construction in Jerusalem would continue “in the same way as has been customary over the last 42 years”.  In other words while the Israelis accept the timing as wrong they insist that the policy of settlement building in the occupied territories is right.

The AIPAC factor

In the face of this intransigence, the United States must be prepared to take strong measures against Israel if it is serious about achieving peace in the Middle East and if it wants to maintain any credibility in the face of this Israeli ‘insult.’  The least it can do is to reduce the three billion dollars in aid that it gives Israel each year. However, the Obama administration’s previous record is not encouraging, and while Joe Biden condemned Israel’s announcement, he also stated that he appreciated Netanyahu’s apology, saying that Netanyahu “clarified that the beginning of actual construction on this particular project would likely take several years”.

Biden’s visit was replete with enthusiastic praise for Israel. He said that he and Obama knew that the U.S. has no better friend than Israel and that “you need not be a Jew to be a Zionist,” in reference to himself.

Biden’s remarks were not only addressed to his Israeli hosts but to the Israeli lobby back home.  The most influential of the lobby groups, AIPAC, has criticized the Obama administration for its condemnation of Israel.  In a statement it said “AIPAC calls on the Administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish State. … The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel.”

Next week, Netanyahu is due to address AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington, where the keynote speaker will be Hillary Clinton.  Given what has happened, this will probably be very uncomfortable for Clinton, and she may face a hostile reception.  Netanyahu has previously used his appearances at AIPAC events to demonstrate Israel’s power in the United States, as he did in 1997, when President Bill Clinton tried to put pressure on him to stop the building of the Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) settlement in East Jerusalem.  After talks with Bill Clinton at the White House, Netanyahu simply refused to comply with this demand and went on to receive a hero’s welcome at an AIPAC dinner. Clinton said that there was nothing he could do to stop him.  The influence of the Israeli lobby, when considered in tandem with Obama’s previous vacillation makes the prospect of effective U.S. action against Israel look grim. 

Break with the past

Most observers agree that the new construction in the Ramat Shlomo settlement was a slap in the face for the U.S. administration.  However, it is also a slap in the face for the entire international community, especially the Quartet, which is made up of the U.S., Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, the countries and organisations which are supposedly mediating peace in the Middle East. The announcement of the construction was timed, perhaps intentionally, to cause the greatest offence possible and to ensure that there will be no progress in peace negotiations.  It came on the same day that Biden arrived in Israel but it also came less than a week after the Palestinian Authority, under pressure from the United States and the Arab countries, agreed to indirect negotiations with Israel.  This decision was criticised in the Arab media and the Israeli settlement plan has now made it politically hazardous for the Palestinian Authority to go ahead with the indirect negotiations and it has now announced that it cannot negotiate with Israel while it is building these housing units. Biden’s plan to restart negotiations was torpedoed.

While the U.S. administration has taken a harsh line with Israel verbally, and the current row is being billed as the worst in 35 years, the previous record suggests that Israel will be allowed to get away with its actions.  Israel has become accustomed to behaving with impunity and getting its way.  Whenever there has been a row between the U.S. and Israel during the past 50 years, the U.S. response has been weak, temporary, or non-existent, and Israel still enjoys the largest amount of aid granted by the U.S. to a foreign country, as well as diplomatic support from the U.S. and preferential trade relations with the EU.

If the U.S. is in any way serious about stopping Israeli settlement activity and restarting the moribund peace process, Obama must make a break with the past, reduce or cut off aid to Israel, and withdraw diplomatic support. This should not be too much for a country that claims super power status.