In light of the US failure to broker an Israeli settlement freeze, it’s clear to me now that the single most valuable contribution the United States has made to the cause of Middle East peace over the last two years was taking on the issue of settlements. If it had “won”, direct talks would now be going forward. But losing has its own rewards.
Who in their right mind can argue any longer that settling 500,000 people (and counting) on land that is “disputed”, “occupied”, “stolen” – take your pick, it doesn’t matter– makes any sense at all, or ever did . By insisting on a settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with full knowledge that he couldn’t single-handedly reverse decades of American policy, President Obama did us all, including those who want a safe home for Israelis, an enormous favor. For by allowing the politics of his insistence to be played out for all to see, what the present Israeli government wants, a status-quo bent on preserving settlement, the apartheid measures that settlement requires, as well as an emasculated statehood for Palestinians, has been demonstrated to be not only the moral and legal abomination that it is, but a political dead-end as well.
Now Palestine, miraculously enough, appears to be taking the diplomatic initiative. Meanwhile, the present government of Israeli thinks it has put Israel’s major ally in its place. It’s likely that’s where the United States will be content stay for a while, as the action shifts elsewhere.
