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23 November 2012 By Khaled Amayreh Israel is taking an unusual amount of flak on its
latest settlements provocation, including from the
United States Khaled Amayreh reports from occupied
Jerusalem. Earlier this week, the Israeli government announced
plans to build more than 3000 settler units in an area
known as E-1 extending from East Jerusalem to the
Jewish colony of Maali Adumim three kilometres
eastward. If implemented, the plan would cut off Arab East
Jerusalem nearly completely from the rest of the West
Bank, rendering the establishment of a Palestinian
state, especially one with Jerusalem as its capital,
an impossible task. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu brushed off all criticisms of the "strategic
settlement project", saying Israel would defend its
national interests under all circumstances. With characteristic arrogance and stonewalling,
Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the provocative
Israel measure. The Egyptian Foreign Minister summoned
the Israeli ambassador to Cairo on Tuesday to express
its utter denumciation of the Israeli decision that
contradicts the principle of exchanging land for peace
and impedes efforts to resume the Palestinian-Israeli
peace prospects. "The unilateral Palestinian moves at the UN are a
blatant fundamental violation of agreements to which
the international community was a sponsor. No one
should be surprised that Israel is not sitting with
its arms folded in response to international
pressure," he said. Ever since its occupation of the West Bank, Israel
built tens of thousands of settler units, populating
them with hundreds of thousands of fanatical Zionist
and Talmudic millenarians advocating the expulsion or
liquidation of Palestinians. Palestinian officials called Netanyahu's remark
"pure lies", saying that Netanyahu had no right to
"invoke unilateralism" since everything he and his
government has done was unilateral and in violation of
international law. "Netanyahu is lying through his teeth. He is
committing an act of lewdness with truth and with
language. He is accusing the Palestinians of indulging
in the same crimes and violations of which he himself
is guilty," said Nimr Hammad, a political aide to, and
confidante of, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)
leader Mahmoud Abbas. "Israel has been truncating and carving our land
for many years, building colonies in violation of
international law, and trying to obliterate the
Arab-Islamic identity of Jerusalem. And after doing
all this, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have
the nerve to accuse us of unilateralism. This is
really beyond the pale of simple human decency,"
Hammad added. Other Israeli officials have sought to downplay the
controversy over the latest Israeli decision to build
more settlements in the West Bank. Danny Ayalon,
Israel's eccentric deputy foreign minister, was quoted
by Israeli state-run radio Tuesday as saying that
"calling in ambassadors for consultation is a normal
diplomatic practice in international relations". Ayalon added that safeguarding vital Israeli
interests was more paramount than winning small
victories or scoring points in international public
diplomacy. Israel considers the occupied Palestinian
territories "disputed" rather than "occupied" land.
Hence the Tel Aviv is worried that the recent
recognition by the UN General Assembly of Palestine as
a non-member state of the world body, a state under
occupation, will turn Israeli political and strategic
calculations upside down. Meanwhile, the decision to build additional
thousands of settler units in Jerusalem continues to
draw unusual negative diplomatic reactions from the
international community, especially Western countries
many of which are widely considered close allies of
Israel. On Tuesday, 4 December, the Australian Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest the settlement expansion plan in East Jerusalem as well as the Israeli decision to withhold tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority. "Australia has long opposed all (Israeli)
settlement activity. Such activity threatens the
viability of a two-state solution without which there
will be no security for Israel," said Foreign Minister
Bob Carr in a statement following a brief meeting with
Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem in Canberra. The Australian move followed similar actions in Europe, including France, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Denmark. The foreign ministers of these countries earlier summoned Israeli ambassadors in their respective capitals to protest the Israeli move, with Alistair Burt, the British Foreign Office minister for the Middle East urging Israel to annul the decision. "I set out the depth of the UK's concern about
these decisions and I called on the Israeli government
to reverse them. The settlements plan, in particular,
has the potential to alter the situation on the ground
on a scale that threatens the viability of a two-state
solution." In an unusual departure from its acquiescent and obsequious approach towards Israel, the Obama administration issued a third and fourth consecutive condemnation of the Israel settlement-expanding plan. American officials called the plan "damaging" to the prospects of a two state solution. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen if the US and other Western countries are able and willing to translate their largely verbal objections to Israeli provocations in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank into proactive tangible measures on the ground. In the past, some of these countries had threatened to impose sanctions on Israel when they felt the latter was going too far in violating international law. However, these countries were eventually forced to retreat due to domestic pressure from pro-Israeli pressure groups, such as in the US Congress, and also due to Israeli stubbornness. Israeli and Jewish leaders have indicated that they will try to "activate and mobilise" the powerful Jewish lobby in the US and also American Zionist evangelical groups in an effort to force the Obama administration to stop pressuring Israel. However, American capitulation to Israel on such a highly sensitive issue would be interpreted in the world's capitals as a de facto US admission that the two-state solution strategy has collapsed and that Israel and its American Jewish allies, not the Obama administration, are the ones calling the shots in Washington. An American surrender to Netanyahu on this issue would also send an unmistakable message to the Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims that it is futile to count on Washington to force or convince Israel to end its decades-old occupation of Arab land. |
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