U.S. Asks Israel To Freeze All Settlement Activity. So, What Else Is New?

In his July 14 article, “Where Obama failed on forging peace in the Middle East,” Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson tries to answer the question of why the “new approach” Obama took upon arriving in office—getting tough with Israel, publicly and privately, with the specific objective of securing a settlement freeze, that would “restore the United States’ reputation as a credible mediator”, capable of changing Israeli behavior on the ground—had the opposite of its intended results. In so doing, he overlooks the far more important question of why the Administration allowed its demands for a settlement freeze to be seen as an unprecedented departure from prior American policy, when in truth Obama’s approach was not “new” in the slightest. 

Wilson’s article fails to mention the 2002 Road Map for peace, developed by the Bush Administration, adopted by the Quartet (the US, Russia, the UN and the EU) and agreed to by Israel and the PLO. The Road Map identified as a Phase I obligation for Israel it "immediately dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001, and consistent with the Mitchell Report, freeze all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)." Had the Administration presented its demand for a settlement freeze as the efforts of an independent mediator to ensure that the disputants honor their obligations under prior agreements—emphasizing that the PLO had met its central Phase I obligation of combating terrorism, but that Israel had failed to meet its obligation to freeze settlements—the President would have been far less vulnerable to accusations of being anti-Israel. The Netanyahu government would have faced intense and sustained political pressure from within Israel to bring the country into compliance with its obligations, increasing the likelihood that he would either submit to the American demand, or be replaced by a leader who would.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, United States President George W. Bush, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after reading statement to the press during the closing moments of the Red Sea Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, June 4, 2003.

The fact that Road Map policy is not even mentioned in Wilson’s article suggests that the American policymakers he interviewed may not even be aware of the errors they made. There appears to have been a conflict of interest between the campaign-trail themes, the promises of “change” and new beginnings, and the reality of Obama administration policy, which left much unchanged from the previous administration. Wilson's article includes repeated examples of the President’s desire to cultivate a perception in the Arab world of a clean break from the prior eight years of American foreign policy under the Bush Administration, even as he could confide to those close to him, “My policy on settlements is no different than George Bush’s policy toward settlements. But I won’t wink and nod.” The administration seems to have opted for the appearance of change over an admission of continuation, taking off the table the option of presenting their most controversial demand—a settlement freeze—as a simple effort to ensure fidelity to the Bush Road Map, rather than as something originating with President Obama himself. While Obama’s demands for a settlement freeze were totally in keeping the prior U.S. policy, they have been seen by most as an expression of his personal views of the parameters of a just end-of-conflict agreement.

In what is likely the messiest, most prolonged and painful divorce in history, the last thing the two parties want or need is for the supposedly independent arbitrator to push for a final resolution in alignment with his own opinions on what is just and fair. For the U.S. to be the credible mediator that Israelis and Palestinians need, we must focus and intensify our efforts on bringing both sides into compliance with their agreed-upon obligations.