President Barack Obama's decision to choose a demand for a total Israeli settlement freeze - as called for in the 2003 Roadmap for Middle East peace - as the entry point for his changed approach to peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians has been criticized not only by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, and not only by hopeless neocons in the U.S. like Elliot Abrams, but also by officials who served in the Bush administration, such as Aaron Miller, who were critical of the Bush administration's tolerance of the settlements. These critics argue that it is simply impossible for an Israeli government to freeze construction in the settlements except in the context of an overall peace agreement. This strategic goal, they say, rather than the secondary issue of the settlements, should be the focus of the Obama administration's diplomacy. The argument has a surface appeal, but could not be more wrongheaded, for a number of reasons. What differentiates Obama's approach from that of previous administrations is his understanding that allowing Israeli governments to redefine the vocabulary of the peace process so as to mean the opposite of their own words' plain meaning is to doom what hope there is for an end to this conflict. Thus, Obama understands that Netanyahu's insistence that any settlement freeze must allow construction to accommodate “natural growth” is a calculated deception intended to cover up construction in the settlements far beyond “natural growth” in order to permanently preclude the possibility of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state. He knows this because that has been the pattern until now under previous Likud, Kadima and even Labour-led governments. Consider the odd decision of Netanyahu to accede to Obama's demand that he accept a Palestinian state, a concession far more important and “strategic” than what Obama's critics consider to be the secondary issue of settlements. Why would Netanyahu, who bitterly and successfully fought off Ariel Sharon's efforts to prevent the Likud's formal rejection of Palestinian statehood, now attack Mahmoud Abbas for delaying a resumption of peace talks to achieve a Palestinian state? And consider the strange political phenomenon of the dog who didn't bark - i.e. the failure of the settlers and Netanyahu's extreme nationalist coalition partners to attack him for that decision. It was greeted by them with virtual indifference. The answer is no great mystery to most Israelis, even if most members of the U.S. Congress don't seem to get it. Israelis know that rejoining a peace process that has gotten exactly nowhere for the past 15 years poses no threat to the status quo. Indeed, it is the charade of peace talks that has provided the cover Israeli governments needed to be able to pose as pursuers of a peace agreement as they continued the enlargement of the settlement enterprise to a point that would prevent a Palestinian state from ever arising. It is also not true, as Obama's critics maintain, that Israeli governments cannot stand up to those who oppose a freeze on construction in settlements that does not accommodate natural growth. It is an absurd claim. As Amnon Rubinstein, a former minister in several Israeli governments, pointed out, Israeli governments regularly enforce “draconian laws” governing illegal construction within Israel's borders. If an Israeli citizen living in Tel Aviv or Haifa whose family experienced “natural growth” were to demand exemption from those laws, he would be advised - not very politely - to look for more appropriate accommodations in some other part of town, or in another town. There is no reason why Israelis living in the occupied territories cannot be told the same thing. But perhaps the most compelling reason the Obama administration decided to begin its push for a breakthrough in the stalemated peace talks with the issue of Israel's illegal settlement activity was its belief that it could retain the support of the Congress in a confrontation with Netanyahu's government over this issue, and disprove the conventional wisdom in Washington that the Israel lobby cannot be defeated even when it seeks to defend the clearly indefensible. Having established that precedent, the Obama administration believes it will be in a far stronger position to press its case with Netanyahu and his government on the permanent status issues, including borders and the sharing of Jerusalem. But as indicated in a document on this subject presented to President Obama last November by a bipartisan group of former senior government officials whose members were described in the New York Times as “mandarins” of the foreign policy community, ending the enlargement of settlements and getting the parties to negotiations will not produce anything more than previous negotiations produced - unless the Obama administration, with the support of the international community, presents the parties with a clear framework for the negotiations, based on UN resolutions, international law, and previous agreements to which Israel and the Palestinian Authority have signed on. Absent that kind of continuing determined American leadership, a victory in the battle over the settlement issue will have been a hollow one. President Obama surely knows this, and that is reason to hope he will continue to persevere along the path he has so skillfully set out. * Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project in New York, is a visiting research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
