America's old ugly face

The US is still playing fast and loose with its commitments on Israeli-Palestinian peace, reports Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah Speaking during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in West Jerusalem Saturday, 31 October, visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked that Israel was making "unprecedented concessions" on the issue of settlements. "What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy on settlements is unprecedented in the context of negotiations."

She also claimed that a freeze on settlement building had not been a precondition for peace talks in the past. Clinton reiterated the same old platitudes about America's commitment to a "comprehensive peace agreement" and the need for the resumption of peace talks as soon as possible. Netanyahu, visibly pleased by Clinton's remarks, said "we think we should sit around that negotiating table right away." He termed Palestinian insistence on a settlement expansion freeze a "new Palestinian policy that doesn't advance peace".

Clinton's remarks sent shockwaves in Ramallah, prompting some Palestinian officials to accuse the Obama administration of "fully and brazenly embracing the Israeli position" and "reneging on erstwhile pledges to commit Israel to freeze all settlement expansion activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem". "There can be no excuse for the continuation of settlements, which is really the main obstacle in the way of any credible peace process," said Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abu Rudeina added: "A settlement freeze and acknowledging the terms of reference is the only way towards peace negotiations. Settlement expansion is illegitimate and it is not possible to accept any justification for the continuation of settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem."

Other Palestinian officials spoke more angrily of "America's old ugly face", with one key official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying "there is not a chance in hell that Obama will force Israel to end the occupation or even freeze the construction of more settlements. I think we are deceiving ourselves. We must stop being bamboozled like little children. The US is simply Israel's guardian, protector and defender. In many aspects, the US is more Zionist and more inimical to our cause and people than Israel itself."

Earlier in Abu Dhabi, Abbas reasserted his opposition to any resumption of peace talks with Israel without a freeze on Jewish settlement construction. In his uncharacteristically firm stand on this issue, Abbas was unanimously backed by Fatah and all other PLO factions. Even Hamas, Abbas's domestic foe, voiced the hope that Abbas would stick to this position and resist American bullying.

Abbas's firm stand on the issue of settlement expansion may have surprised Clinton, prompting the secretary of state to tone down her pro-Israeli remarks. Clinton was quoted as saying during an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Morocco Monday, 2 November, that although it was true that Israel offered unprecedented concessions on the issue of settlements, it didn't mean that the US was satisfied with the Israeli stance. However, Clinton's statement was largely viewed by Palestinian and Arab observers as "too weak to undo the damage already done".

The PA's fury over Clinton's remarks is understandable. The continued survival and relevance of the PA depends to a large extent on the success of the peace process. Indeed, if the peace process fails to deliver, the PA itself loses its raison d'être. Moreover, the PA as well as many in the Arab world gave President Obama the benefit of the doubt when he pledged in his landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on 4 June that his administration would adopt a fair and balanced approach towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. Hence present disappointment and bitterness.

Still more important is the fact that Abbas himself has no other alternative strategy in case the peace process with Israel meets a dead-end, as most Palestinians and Arabs believe it has. Abbas is also worried that by returning to peace talks with Israel without getting settlement expansion halted, at least for the duration of prospective talks, he would incur the wrath of his people. One PA official intimated that any "serious concession by Abbas to Netanyahu at this time, such agreeing to return to the negotiating table without preconditions, would make him lose face before his people". "I think most Palestinians would view this as a scandalous betrayal and a sort of a selling out. The Goldstone episode would be small in comparison," he added.

There is no doubt that Hamas is keenly watching Abbas's behaviour. Two weeks ago Abbas called for presidential and legislative elections to be organised in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. However, with the peace process going nowhere and with the Obama administration cajoling and coercing the Palestinian leader to accommodate Israeli intransigence, Abbas might very well find himself backed into a corner. It is uncertain if Abbas will be able to sustain his current position, namely his refusal to resume peace talks without a freeze on settlements. After all, Abbas stands at the helm of a weak entity whose very financial and political survival depends to a large extent on the goodwill of the US and EU, as well as Israel.

Moreover, even if the Palestinian leader decided to bite the bullet and return to the negotiating table, everyone in the region and beyond knows well that the talks would be more of the same, given past failed efforts to reach a lasting agreement with Israel. The reason is clear. Israel, especially under the current right-wing government, will never voluntarily agree to give up the spoils of the 1967 war and is extremely unlikely to agree to withdraw from East Jerusalem, allow for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees or, indeed, dismantle hundreds of Jewish colonies established by successive Israeli governments on Palestinian land occupied more than 42 years ago.

In fact, many Palestinians, even within Abbas's own Fatah party, are not enthusiastic about resuming talks with Israel under the present "unfavourable" conditions. Jebril Rajoub, a member of Fatah's Executive Committee, pointed out that "for negotiations to succeed, there has to be an agreed-upon endgame. But if talks are to be viewed by the Israelis and the Americans as an occasion for bullying the Palestinians to surrender, then to hell with peace talks."

To be sure, the Palestinians are not the only ones getting disillusioned by the Obama administration's weakness vis-à-vis Israel.

The noted Israeli journalist Gideon Levy accused the US of "sucking up to Israel". Writing in Haaretz newspaper on 1 November, Levy argued that the American approach of begging Israel to offer concessions for peace was counterproductive and would achieve no results. "Israel is the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians. Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don't change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the US is in its pocket, and that America's automatic veto will save it from condemnation and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world's policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways."