Vol. 73/No. 23      June 15, 2009

President Barack Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Clinton said. “And we intend to press that point.”

The Obama administration sees halting the settlements as a crucial step toward creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel that could help keep the Palestinian struggle in check and bring stability to the region.

There are more than 280,000 Jewish settlers in 120 settlements in the West Bank, which is home to 2.2 million Palestinian Arabs. In 2005 there were 230,000 settlers. The West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

On June 1 Netanyahu told a committee of Israel’s parliament that he could not “freeze life” in existing settlements and that some building must continue to accommodate “natural growth,” that is, building more rooms and homes as families expand. He called Washington’s demands “unreasonable.”

While Netanyahu has shelved the negotiations for a Palestinian state that had been pushed by his predecessor Ehud Olmert, his attitude toward the settlements is in line with previous Israeli governments. The Israeli daily Haaretz notes that “every Israeli government since 1967 has insisted on building and developing the settlements.” Not only has the number of Jewish settlers continually increased, the paper says, but along with it “the segregated road system and the invasive route of the separation fence, which is intended to facilitate Israel’s de facto annexation of part of the West Bank.”

The segregated roads, which West Bank Palestinians are not allowed to use, and the wall, which often prevents farmers from reaching their orchards, are a source of deep anger to Palestinians. Weekly protests continue against the more than 300-mile-long “fence” that twists and turns through the territory.

As the proportion of Palestinians inside the pre-1967 borders continues to grow—now more than 20 percent of the population—along with the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel’s rulers have abandoned dreams of a Greater Israel. Instead they seek to maintain a majority-Jewish state within borders of their own choosing. But they still harbor hopes that this could include parts of the West Bank.

The divergence between Tel Aviv and Washington on the settlements and foreign policy is not new. In the course of the first war against Iraq, from 1990 to ’91, Washington strengthened its ties to some Arab regimes and no longer had to rely exclusively on Tel Aviv to advance U.S. interests.

“U.S. policymakers have always opposed Israel’s presence beyond the Green line [1967 borders],” the Jersualem Post said in a May 31 editorial, pointing to comments by former secretary of state Condeleezza Rice in June 2008. “Still there’s no denying the disturbing change in tone emanating from Washington, which is elevating the settlements issue to an importance which is disproportionate.”

Obama met with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, in Washington, D.C., May 28, a week after hosting Netanyahu. At the White House press conference after their meeting, Obama praised Abbas for taking measures to assure Tel Aviv “that security on the West Bank is in place.” More needs to be done, he said to reduce “incitement and anti-Israel sentiments” among Palestinians.

Two days after Abbas’s White House visit, U.S.-trained and financed Palestinian Authority police surrounded a house in the West Bank town of Qalqilya that they said Hamas members were using to store weapons. Hamas, a bourgeois Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip, has significant support in the West Bank. Three police and three Hamas supporters died during the eight-hour battle.  
 
 
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