Fighting Over Settlements

In the last week, the U.S.-Israel rift over settlements narrowed, or at least moved from public view to backroom discussions. That is, until Tuesday.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper RAI, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that "arguing" over Israel's position on settlement construction would waste time "instead of moving towards peace." He pledged, however, that, "we will not build new settlements" and "will not expropriate additional land to expand existing settlements."

But Netanyahu added a caveat that flies in the face of the American demand that all settlement construction stop. "All we ask," he said, "is that, pending a final peace agreement, the people who are there will be allowed to live a normal life,"-meaning that construction for what Israel deems "natural growth" will not stop.

In Washington, analysts and policy makers have been arguing over the most effective ways to stop settlements and promote negotiations.

The main point of discussion has centered on how Israel should begin to deal with settlements: Is it more expedient for Israel to "freeze" settlements-to stop building until a final deal is made? Should Israel work instead to physically remove settlement outposts that it never authorized in the first place? Or should Israel first make a deal on the final borders of a Palestinian state and come to an agreement on which settlements it will annex and which it will remove?

At a Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) panel discussion, FMEP's Geoffrey Aronson and the Co-Directors of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation, Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah, argued that while stopping all growth through a settlement freeze would be a positive move, it is not worth the political capital that would be expended to get there.

Geoffrey Aronson put it this way: "An effective freeze would be an extraordinarily complex and wide ranging undertaking. . . . Israel will have to undo a system four decades in the making by which settlers, the legislative and executive arm of the state, public-private and super-national communal organizations collaborate in the encouragement and expansion of settlements. Laws empowering public and private bodies to increase settlement will need to be changed. Many existing military orders will have to be rescinded and new ones issued. . . . These massive changes indicate the kind of Israeli political commitment that would be required to impose, maintain and enforce such a change in policy and that the U.S. would have to make if it wants to enforce a settlement freeze. American efforts would be far better spent if we adopt a policy directed at evacuation of settlements and defining borders for two states."

In the Wall Street Journal last week, David Makovsky, a Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, also argued that a settlement freeze may not be the issue to focus on first. Instead he promoted the idea of brokering a deal on final borders first: "Israel has been unable to freeze settlement construction since the enterprise began in 1968, and it is hard to see how it could do so now. . . .The only way to deal with the settlement issue is to render it moot by widening it to peacemaking and heading straight into the final negotiations on territory."

Others argue that no territorial agreement will be made until both sides trust each other to fulfill commitments.

According to an op-ed on the blog Jewcy by free-lancer Moshe Yaroni, a settlement freeze could be the mechanism that not only allows Palestinian and Israeli leaders to build that trust, but also gives Israel the opportunity to start effectively dealing with West Bank settlers.

According to Yaroni, a settlement freeze accomplishes two things: "one, it buys some time for the Palestinian Authority and for a real, tangible peace process to be revived. . . . The second thing it does is to bring the confrontation with the hardcore minority of the settler movement closer to the surface. . . . and the most radical settlers' likely response to a full and genuine freeze on all construction in the West Bank will put law and order to its final test. . . . A freeze would be an investment of political capital, one which will generate great returns if successful and open up more opportunities, including opportunities to push for a rollback of the settlement project."

And what of Israel's contention that it must build to account for the "natural growth" of settlements?

According to Daniel Kurtzer, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, some of the natural growth arguments currently being thrown around in Washington amount to "nonsense."

Writing in the Washington Post, he said that, "No one suggests that Israelis stop having babies. Rather, the blessing of a new baby does not translate into a right to build more apartments or houses in settlements. The two issues have nothing to do with each other. Israelis, like Americans, move all the time when life circumstances-children, jobs, housing availability-change. . . . The Obama administration is pursuing policies that every administration since 1967 has articulated-that settlements jeopardize the possibility of achieving peace and thus settlement activity should stop."

According to Kurtzer, for real movement to be made on settlements, and on a two-state solution: "It is time for Israel to freeze all settlement activity and dismantle the unauthorized outposts."

The Obama administration is aware of all the arguments. It now has to decide among them, and act accordingly.