Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements The U.S. and Israel reached a clear understanding about natural growth. By ELLIOTT ABRAMS

Abrams fuzzes the fact that the Bush Administration and the Israeli Government abandoned any effort to define settlement boundaries, so there was no agreement on where a settlement's borders ended. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer reports this in a recent article on settlements.

WSJ/Opinion
Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements
The U.S. and Israel reached a clear understanding about natural growth.
By ELLIOTT ABRAMS

Despite fervent denials by Obama administration officials, there were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. As the Obama administration has made the settlements issue a major bone of contention between Israel and the U.S., it is necessary that we review the recent history.

In the spring of 2003, U.S. officials (including me) held wide-ranging discussions with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. The "Roadmap for Peace" between Israel and the Palestinians had been written. President George W. Bush had endorsed Palestinian statehood, but only if the Palestinians eliminated terror. He had broken with Yasser Arafat, but Arafat still ruled in the Palestinian territories. Israel had defeated the intifada, so what was next?


We asked Mr. Sharon about freezing the West Bank settlements. I recall him asking, by way of reply, what did that mean for the settlers? They live there, he said, they serve in elite army units, and they marry. Should he tell them to have no more children, or move?

We discussed some approaches: Could he agree there would be no additional settlements? New construction only inside settlements, without expanding them physically? Could he agree there would be no additional land taken for settlements?

As we talked several principles emerged. The father of the settlements now agreed that limits must be placed on the settlements; more fundamentally, the old foe of the Palestinians could -- under certain conditions -- now agree to Palestinian statehood.

In June 2003, Mr. Sharon stood alongside Mr. Bush, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at Aqaba, Jordan, and endorsed Palestinian statehood publicly: "It is in Israel's interest not to govern the Palestinians but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state. A democratic Palestinian state fully at peace with Israel will promote the long-term security and well-being of Israel as a Jewish state." At the end of that year he announced his intention to pull out of the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. government supported all this, but asked Mr. Sharon for two more things. First, that he remove some West Bank settlements; we wanted Israel to show that removing them was not impossible. Second, we wanted him to pull out of Gaza totally -- including every single settlement and the "Philadelphi Strip" separating Gaza from Egypt, even though holding on to this strip would have prevented the smuggling of weapons to Hamas that was feared and has now come to pass. Mr. Sharon agreed on both counts.

These decisions were political dynamite, as Mr. Sharon had long predicted to us. In May 2004, his Likud Party rejected his plan in a referendum, handing him a resounding political defeat. In June, the Cabinet approved the withdrawal from Gaza, but only after Mr. Sharon fired two ministers and allowed two others to resign. His majority in the Knesset was now shaky.

After completing the Gaza withdrawal in August 2005, he called in November for a dissolution of the Knesset and for early elections. He also said he would leave Likud to form a new centrist party. The political and personal strain was very great. Four weeks later he suffered the first of two strokes that have left him in a coma.

Throughout, the Bush administration gave Mr. Sharon full support for his actions against terror and on final status issues. On April 14, 2004, Mr. Bush handed Mr. Sharon a letter saying that there would be no "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. Instead, the president said, "a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel."

On the major settlement blocs, Mr. Bush said, "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." Several previous administrations had declared all Israeli settlements beyond the "1967 borders" to be illegal. Here Mr. Bush dropped such language, referring to the 1967 borders -- correctly -- as merely the lines where the fighting stopped in 1949, and saying that in any realistic peace agreement Israel would be able to negotiate keeping those major settlements.

On settlements we also agreed on principles that would permit some continuing growth. Mr. Sharon stated these clearly in a major policy speech in December 2003: "Israel will meet all its obligations with regard to construction in the settlements. There will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements."

Ariel Sharon did not invent those four principles. They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003.

They were not secret, either. Four days after the president's letter, Mr. Sharon's Chief of Staff Dov Weissglas wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that "I wish to reconfirm the following understanding, which had been reached between us: 1. Restrictions on settlement growth: within the agreed principles of settlement activities, an effort will be made in the next few days to have a better definition of the construction line of settlements in Judea & Samaria."

Stories in the press also made it clear that there were indeed "agreed principles." On Aug. 21, 2004 the New York Times reported that "the Bush administration . . . now supports construction of new apartments in areas already built up in some settlements, as long as the expansion does not extend outward."

In recent weeks, American officials have denied that any agreement on settlements existed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated on June 17 that "in looking at the history of the Bush administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements. That has been verified by the official record of the administration and by the personnel in the positions of responsibility."

These statements are incorrect. Not only were there agreements, but the prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation -- the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. This was the first time Israel had ever removed settlements outside the context of a peace treaty, and it was a major step.

It is true that there was no U.S.-Israel "memorandum of understanding," which is presumably what Mrs. Clinton means when she suggests that the "official record of the administration" contains none. But she would do well to consult documents like the Weissglas letter, or the notes of the Aqaba meeting, before suggesting that there was no meeting of the minds.

Mrs. Clinton also said there were no "enforceable" agreements. This is a strange phrase. How exactly would Israel enforce any agreement against an American decision to renege on it? Take it to the International Court in The Hague?

Regardless of what Mrs. Clinton has said, there was a bargained-for exchange. Mr. Sharon was determined to break the deadlock, withdraw from Gaza, remove settlements -- and confront his former allies on Israel's right by abandoning the "Greater Israel" position to endorse Palestinian statehood and limits on settlement growth. He asked for our support and got it, including the agreement that we would not demand a total settlement freeze.

For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government. We may be abandoning the deal now, but we cannot rewrite history and make believe it did not exist.

Mr. Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, handled Middle East affairs at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009.

A rebuttal from Lara Friedman on Americans for Peace Now Policy Blog.

25 Jun 2009 09:13 am

The Settlers’ Lawyer (or, Elliott Abrams Is At It Again)

June 25, 2009, posted by Lara Friedman

On May 23, 2005, the Washington Post ran a an incisive op-ed by former State Department negotiator and Middle East advisor Aaron Miller, entitled “Israel’s Lawyer,” in which Aaron argued “For far too long, many American officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as Israel’s attorney…” I was reminded of that article when I read today’s piece by Elliott Abrams in the Wall Street Journal, which should, I believe, have been entitled “The West Bank Settlers’ Lawyer.”


Before anyone accuses me of casting aspersions on Mr. Abrams’ honor or motivations, let me be clear: I have no doubt he has taken the case pro bono. For him, advocating for the settlers is clearly a labor of love. And the settlers are fortunate to have Elliott volunteering for the job. He brings a unique combination of expertise and experience, combined, it would seem, with a shameless willingness to cherry-pick the facts and, when the facts don’t support his argument, to fall back on the “I was there and I know what happened.”


An interesting approach from a man who does not have a spotless record when it comes to truth-telling and foreign policy (for anyone who has forgotten the history: “Elliott Abrams — Pleaded guilty October 7, 1991, to two misdemeanor charges of withholding information from Congress about secret government efforts to support the Nicaraguan contra rebels during a ban on such aid. U.S. District Chief Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., sentenced Abrams November 15, 1991, to two years probation and 100 hours community service. Abrams was pardoned December 24, 1992.”)


But that was a long time ago. Let’s forgot the ugly and embarrassing Iran-Contra history and focus on the “facts” in the current case, as Elliott sees them:


In today’s WSJ article, Elliott offers an almost completely unverifiable history of what he says transpired between June 2003 and August 2005 (the date of Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza). Predictably, he focuses on the letter President Bush gave to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004. In that letter, Elliott notes (correctly), Bush wrote: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”


What Elliott neglects to mention is that in the letter Bush also re-stated his commitment to the Roadmap (”the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap”), which in stage I states that “Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).”


Elliott then goes on to assert that “On settlements we also agreed on principles that would permit some continuing growth.” His evidence of such an agreement? Exhibit A: A statement by Prime Minister Sharon, not President Bush: “Mr. Sharon stated these clearly in a major policy speech in December 2003: ‘Israel will meet all its obligations with regard to construction in the settlements. There will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements.’”

Is this extremely experienced lawyer and foreign policy professional seriously arguing that a statement by Sharon should be understood as an accurate articulation of US policy, even in the absence of any corroborating statement by the US President? Even when that lengthy policy speech went into a range of issue where - at least officially - there was public disagreement with the US? (for example, in this same speech Sharon makes clear Israel views the Roadmap commitments as sequential - the Palestinians do everything they have to do, and only then does Israel act. ) Apparently so.


But it gets better. For further evidence, Elliott asserts that, really, the US agreed with everything Sharon was saying. His evidence? Exhibit B: Aletter from Ariel Sharon’s Chief of Staff, Dov Weissglas, Secretary of State Rice.

It is like saying “your honor, I swear my client did not sideswipe that car in the parking lot. I was there and I saw the whole thing. And as proof I give you my statement and a statement from my client and his wife, written to the owner of the damaged car, making clear that they were not the ones who hit his car. I rest my case.”

So there are not quotes from President Bush or Secretary Rice to support Elliott’s narrative - only statements by Israeli officials.


But Elliot has more proof to bring before the court: media reports. Exhibit #C: Elliott notes that “Stories in the press also made it clear that there were indeed ‘agreed principles.’ On Aug. 21, 2004 the New York Times reported that ‘the Bush administration . . . now supports construction of new apartments in areas already built up in some settlements, as long as the expansion does not extend outward.’”


Interesting. So if the NYT reported it, it must be true, right? Or rather, what must be true is that they were reporting what someone told them, at the time. And according to the first paragraph of the article Elliott cites, the source is: “American and Israeli officials.” Who could these officials be? Could they be Abrams himself (who at this point can no longer deny that he is personally invested in such a policy), and maybe Dov Weissglas? There is no way to know, but regardless, this is clearly not definitive proof of anything, other than the fact that there were Israeli and US officials spinning the story this way.


The rest of Elliott’s article is simply hearsay and innuendo, speculation, and conjecture - not a single “fact” that can be examined, let alone refuted. Elliott rests his case on statements by two Israeli officials who never hid their desire to do everything possible to keep building West Bank settlements, and press reports based on un-named US and Israeli officials.


With this kind of evidence, it is hard to see why the jury is still debating this case at all. Clearly the settlers’ have a really excellent lawyer.

———

And since some of us prefer to rely on facts, rather than clever argumentation and bombastic statements, here are some actual statements by President Bush about settlements, from the same period Elliott is addressing:


President Bush 9/21/04: “…Israel should impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations…”


President Bush, 11/27/07: “…Israel must demonstrate its support for the creation of a prosperous and successful Palestinian state by removing unauthorized outposts, ending settlement expansion, and finding other ways for the Palestinian Authority to exercise its responsibilities without compromising Israel’s security.”


President Bush, 1/9/2008: “…The second track is to help both parties deal with road map issues. Settlements is a road map issue…”


President Bush, 1/10/2008: “…Each side has got obligations under the road map. Settlements are clearly stated in the road map obligations for Israel. We have made our concerns about expansion of settlements known, and we expect both parties to honor their obligations under the road map.”