"Rightly or wrongly, Obama has made the settlement issue a test of his
credibility, and if he backs down then all the progress he has made
will wash away instantly. That makes this a pivotal moment, whether or
not an Obama administration focused on Iran wants it to be one. Most
Palestinians, with their well-earned skepticism of American policy,
expect Obama to back down. Most Israelis probably do as well. And that
would be tragic, because without much publicity Obama's pressure has
already started generating some important results on the ground — not
just Netanyahu's carefully hedged uttering of an emasculated two state
formula, but the significant easing of checkpoints and roadblocks in
the West Bank, the lifting of some of the more ludicrous parts of the
blockade of Gaza, the release of Hamas prisoners
(including its Parliamentarians) by both the Palestinian Authority and
Israel, and reports that the Egyptians are planning an unveiling of a
Hamas-Fatah unity government agreement on July 7.
[…]
It's important to again emphasize the crucial context here: Obama's
pressure has actually been quietly working. Lost in the public
pyrotechnics over Netanyahu’s grudging utterance of an emasculated two
state phraseology, Israel has over the last few weeks actually been
making serious changes to the checkpoints and roadblocks in the West
Bank and to the blockade of Gaza. The siege of cities such as Nablus
has been lifted, major choke-points on key West Bank roads have been
significantly opened, and journalists report being able to drive to
Jenin without being stopped at a checkpoint. This is new.
[…]
Obama has to stand tough on the settlement expansions if he hopes to
not squander the tentative gains of the last few weeks — and, more
broadly, to see his administration's credibility on Israeli-Palestinian
issues shattered forever. This is going to be hard to do, since the
administration is badly distracted by the events in Iran and might not
see this as a good time or an important enough issue to pick a costly fight with Netanyahu. But that would be a huge mistake, because credibility lost here will be very, very hard to recover. Mitchell's abrupt cancelation of a meeting with Netanyahu should only be the beginning:
he and Obama need to be ready to take concrete steps to force Israel to
back down, or see all of the tentative progress they've seen made
evaporate. I think they may surprise a lot of people."
