From 'The Arena' on Politico. Yousef Munayyer - Exec. Dir., The Jerusalem Fund:
Both Israel and the United States share blame for the current crisis. The United States erred in raising expectations on rhetoric alone during Obama’s speech in Cairo. By neglecting to apply any pressure on Israel, the United States set themselves up for failure when they demanded a settlement freeze from an Israeli government addicted to colonizing Palestinian territory. Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is insanity.
It is unclear why then, that that United States thought Israel would deviate from its decades-old policy of colonizing the West Bank without giving them any significant reason to do so. The U.S. can choose from a number of options including cutting military aid and/or loan guarantees to Israel, abstaining from UN Security council votes pertaining to Israel, shutting down 501( c ) 3s that send tax-deductible contributions to Israeli settlements, and rejecting visa’s for Israelis living in settlements.
The government of Israel, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, is also to blame for the current crisis. The announcement of 1,600 additional homes in an Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem torpedoed months of Special Envoy Mitchell’s efforts and humiliated Vice President Biden before the entire world. It is hard to believe that this announcement was not intentional. It comes as part of a series of provocative Israeli measures that included tight restrictions on worshipers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the declaration of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron (deep inside Occupied Palestinian Territory) as an Israeli heritage site and the continued and consistent ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem through home eviction and demolition.
The clash between the Obama Administration and Netanyahu’s right-wing government were evident from the start. Perhaps now the Obama Administration will realize the need to take action to change Israel’s behavior in Palestinian territory. Words alone however are not enough. The U.S. government must make it clear to Israel that they either have to chose between an alliance with the United States or the Occupation of Palestinian territory. They simply cannot have both.
Over 20 years ago, then-Secretary of State James Baker said “Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process on each of my trips I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity. This does violate United States policy.” Yet, we are still shocked, shocked when the Israelis pull this with Biden. If this isn’t an indication that the policy toward Israel needs an abrupt change, I don’t know what is.
1 comments: on "Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations?"
I think the current so called "crises" is just a minor pump in the strategic relationship between the two countries. The U.S. has been the sponsor for Israel terror and aggression for years paying lip service to the so called peace process which is basically with minor modification adopting the Israeli stand on everything. The U.S. in particular and the west in general historically speaking would rather deal with the Labor Party than the Likud. The Labor party is more attuned to western hypocrisy of putting spin on things like colonializm,and aggression and make it sounds like they stand for peace and love. They hated Likud because it is so blunt in what it does and makes the U.S. policy makers so embarrassed of admitting their own responsibility of sponsoring Israel war crimes. It is very clear to me that this is a power play between the U.S. and Israel, no more, no less.
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