Daniel Levy at Foreign Policy reports on a US draft statement on Palestine for the Quartet (EU, UN, US, and Russia) that the other members of the Quartet rejected earlier this month. Levy says the US was pulling a “fast one” by using the statement to thwart the greatest immediate threat to Israeli, sorry I mean U.S. interests, the statehood vote in the U.N. Levy concludes that the US opposition to the statehood initiative may well foster a European endrun on the Americans at the U.N., and leave the U.S. and Israel further marginalized internationally. Levy:
The U.S. draft proposal presented to the Quartet did include the President’s language from the May 19 speech, but it also included a whole lot more, all of it skewing, extremely uni-directionally, in Israel’s favor. To the simple May 19 border language of “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps,” the U.S. added the following from the May 22 speech:
“The parties themselves will negotiate a border between Israel and Palestine that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967, to take account of changes that have taken place over the last 44 years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides.”
This is essentially America asking the Quartet to endorse illegal Israeli settlement activity that has taken place since 1967 (and in phrasing this as “the parties themselves will negotiate a border…” the U.S. is deviating from its own previous policy of not dictating to the parties). Compare that to the official position of the European Union: “The European Union will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties.”
Remember, the Quartet issued a statement endorsing the president’s May 19 speech; it has never endorsed the May 22 speech.
The U.S. text also included language about Israel that was spoken on both May 19 and May 22 but was not part of the principles or foundations for negotiations set out on May 19 (and it is these principles that the Quartet endorsed). As follows:
“A lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland of the Jewish people.”
Again, this is terminology that neither the EU nor the Quartet has endorsed in the past. While it may be derived from previous U.N. resolutions (UNGA 181) it is problematic in several respects. It comes at a time when the nationalist chauvinism of the Netanyahu-Lieberman government is creating in practice an ever less democratic rendition of Jewish statehood. And America’s text actually fails to even mention the need for Israel to be a democracy or to respect the equal rights of all citizens (maybe the American drafters did understand more than appears at first glance)….
