THAT the US expects — and it appears accepts — that Israel will retain control over large Jewish settlements in the West Bank is a relatively new feature of American policy. Unfortunately, it represents a huge obstacle to peace in general and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state in particular. It was President Bush who last year told Ariel Sharon that he could effectively keep most of the West Bank because of “demographic realities.” Washington has now said it again, US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer calling it “unrealistic” to expect full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank in any final status agreement. Kurtzer’s remarks were made in reply to Israeli plans to build 3,500 new houses in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim. Adumim is the largest of the West Bank settlements and will now get even larger.
There is every reason to believe that the planned settlement construction is designed to placate Jewish settlers and all those opposed to the Gaza disengagement plan which passed its last major legislative hurdle after the Shinui Party said it would support Sharon’s budget proposals. If Sharon had failed to pass his budget by a March 31 deadline, elections would have had to be called and the Gaza pullout delayed or even derailed. Now though it is all but certain that there will be a summer Gaza pullout — and opponents are sharpening their knives. To appease them, the government has had to compensate. Consequently, the move for more West Bank settlements. Obviously, too, the United States will not put too much pressure on Sharon to have a settlement rethink because of the supposed difficulty and pain it believes Israel is going through because of Gaza. Thus the pronouncements by Kurtzer and more importantly from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who at first believed the Adumim expansion was “at odds with American policy” but who then made an about-face.
Just a day later, Rice asked for a definition of what exactly freezing settlements means. The secretary’s claims that details of Israel’s peace plan obligations to a settlement freeze are still being studied are amazing. After decades of the United States calling Jewish settlements an obstacle to peace, and the position backed by countless UN resolutions and as the US-inspired road map calls for a settlement freeze, America’s highest ranking diplomat needs Webster to tell her what a freeze actually means. It means not building Jewish settlements of any kind, or adding to them, anywhere in Israeli-occupied territory. It means making no distinction, as is being done these days, between Israeli settlements built with and without government permission. They are all illegal. The settlement issue coincides with an April trip Sharon will make to the US.
Last year, at almost the same time, Sharon received from Bush a letter of assurance, more like a carte blanche, allowing him to retain most of the West Bank. This year it appears that, following all the US pronouncements backing Israel’s settlement drive, Sharon will get more of the same.
