When I visited Bethlehem a year back, I got the view north back to Jerusalem–beyond the all-but-encircling concrete barrier–of a sugarloaf of a hill with a gleaming settlement on it. Har Homa was built in the late ’90s, and its construction is evidence of the Israel lobby at work.
The story is told in an important new book on Israel’s illegal settlements, lately published by Nation Books: Lords of the Land, by Idith Zertal, a historian, and Akiva Eldar, the Haaretz columnist.
In 1997 the Netanyahu government resolved to build Har Homa, under pressure from the right wing, including Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, now the P.M., who was adamant about the need for the development’s 6500 units, for Israeli Jews.
Yasir Arafat was enraged by the plans. Har Homa would serve to cut the southern West Bank off from East Jerusalem, and would violate the Oslo accords, which called on Israel not to establish any more "facts on the ground." Arafat said Har Homa was likely to detonate an "explosion" among Palestinians and he would respond to Har Homa with the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.
Lords of the Land says that the Clinton administration responded to the emergency with "lip service." On March 3, 1997, Arafat met with Clinton in a crisis meeting at the White House to discuss the planned settlement. Clinton told Arafat that Netanyahu’s coalition partners must be taken into account; his government depended on far-right parties. Arafat responded that one settlement could endanger the whole peace process–is that what Clinton wanted? Netanyahu’s two predecessors, Rabin and Peres, had assured Arafat that nothing like this would happen under Oslo.
Arafat felt he had moved Clinton; but when he arrived at Andrews Air Force base to leave the country, he got a call from Dennis Ross. Ross informed him that Netanyahu was refusing to freeze the settlement.
Clinton did send a letter to Netanyahu asking him to postpone construction, the authors report. But Netanyahu blew that off. "I am building at Har Homa this week, and nothing is going to budge me from that."
Work began. Palestinians broke off negotiations under the interim accord. "The United States imposed a veto on a UN Security Council resolution condemning the settlements. America lost the last drop of its pretensions to being a fair mediator," Zertal and Elder write.
This is a momentous story. (The late Tanya Reinhart echoes the conclusion, here.) Yes, I know, I should read Dennis Ross’s version of same (his book is packed away right now). Still, there is Har Homa before your eyes, with that hateful fence around it. Lords of the Land must be read here in conjunction with The Israel Lobby, by Walt and Mearsheimer. The settlements have been a disaster, everyone agrees on that. And they arose from political pressures inside Israel. Why was that our problem? Why would an American president cave on such an egregious point? These settlements have been a pox on the peace process, as threatening to international security as Hamas’s rise or Iran’s noises about a bomb. At the time Clinton said, he wished the Israelis wouldn’t build Har Homa. Where is the American spine? Can you imagine an American president deferring to any other head of state in similar circumstances? The spinelessness can only be explained politically: that our government also has rightwing constituents engaged on the issue. It has lost its independence; politicians feel beholden to pro-settlement interests.
Count on Israeli writers to expose this sad tale. Yes, I criticize Israel all the time here; but the civic culture that country has created is an unending marvel!
