Israel's settlement setback Obama's anti-settlement stance is giving the Israeli right a taste of its own medicine and its howls of protest ring hollo

Israel's settlement setback
Obama's anti-settlement stance is giving the Israeli right a taste of its own medicine and its howls of protest ring hollow
Seth Freedman
Monday June 8 2009
guardian.co.uk

President Obama's anti-settlement stance has, unsurprisingly, prompted an outpouring of wailing and teeth-gnashing among supporters of Israel's irredentist policies. His unequivocal demand for settlement expansion to come to a grinding halt has dominated headlines in both Israel and the diaspora, with many outraged by his assertion that "natural growth" of settlements be proscribed as well.

In his opponents' eyes, to call for an end to natural growth is ? as Charles Krauthammer put it ? to "strangle to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line", as though Obama's views are as insidious as those of a serial killer hellbent on leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. "It means no increase in population", Krauthammer continues. "Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them ? not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that".

There's no denying he has a point. If more children are born than elderly residents die in a particular settlement, a dearth of accommodation will, in time, undermine the settlement's ability to function as a living, breathing town. Its pattern of natural expansion and contraction will be utterly usurped by external pressures that will crush the life from its lungs, with potentially terminal results.

So far, so bleak. But what Krauthammer and his co-conspirators fail to point out is that Israel has for decades been implementing just such a restrictive policy against Palestinian towns and cities. One way or another, the Israeli authorities have sucked the lifeblood out of the Palestinian people as a whole, refusing them any kind of opportunity for "natural growth", cloaking their decision in a nebulous haze of security concerns for both regular Israelis and ? of course ? Israel's legions of settlers dwelling illegally in the West Bank.

For years, settlers have been cosseted and coddled by both the heads of Israel's parliament and military, who have reacted to their behaviour with a mixture of turning a blind eye and out-and-out complicity with their crimes. The settlement enterprise could never have got off the ground without explicit support from the upper echelons of Israeli power. Given Israel's undisputed military might, to suggest that the settlers were too powerful to resist when they first set up shop in Judea and Samaria is a fallacy; rather, their insistence on expropriating Palestinian land and "Judaising" the area played right into the hands of successive Israeli governments who needed the settlers' physical presence to justify an occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Today, the Israeli authorities are reaping what they sowed. The settler movement has spiralled out of control: the gun-toting residents of the wild West Bank have become a law unto themselves, who have no qualms about meting out threats and violence against Israeli security personnel if they don't agree with decisions laid down by the state and enforced by the army. The dismantling of settlement outposts engenders reprisals against both Israeli troops and Palestinian townsfolk; religious fervour and nationalist rage combining to create a heady concoction in the minds of law-defying thugs who won't take no for an answer: not from Israeli politicians, not from Obama, not from anyone short of God Himself.

Meanwhile, the separation wall, the maze of checkpoints, the economic blockades, and all the other restrictions imposed on the Palestinian populace deny the original residents of the West Bank any chance of natural growth or development. In East Jerusalem, communities are dying out in just the manner Krauthammer spells out ? except that those affected are Arab rather than Jewish, so instead of speaking out against the situation, pundits and politicians alike sit back smugly and watch the devastating effects of their chokehold policies kick in.

The disaffection with Obama's stance is not confined simply to those living illegally beyond the Green Line. According to polls, over half of Israelis are "disappointed" with Obama's policies. Regarding settlements, 70% called for removing outposts, but only 52% were prepared to call for a freeze on growth in existing settlements ? demonstrating just how deeply the "facts on the ground" element of the settlement enterprise has penetrated the collective Israeli psyche.

Settlements that began life as outposts ? and that weren't "strangled at birth" ? have now become too large to even consider dismantling, thus cementing their status as corners of a foreign land that must remain forever Israel. Disregarding the fact that these settlements are key to the policy of denying natural growth to Palestinian communities, more than half of Israelis polled are prepared to overlook the negative impact of the settlements' existence, so long as it's not their fellow Israeli citizens whose lives are affected as a result.

Whether Obama is able to live up to his strong statements in the coming months and years remains to be seen; while he has certainly dispensed with previous administrations' softly-softly approach towards Israel's misdeeds, there is a long way to go to turn his words into actions. In the interim, however, it is of great interest how the Israeli right cope with being given a taste of their own medicine: their howls of protest ring all too hollow, given their own dubious approach towards loving their neighbours over the preceding years.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009