Obama to Netanyahu: Israel faces Int’l Sanctions over “Permanent Occupation of West Bank”

Last edited Thu Mar 6, 2014, 09:57 PM - Edit history (1)

(This is a fascinating read)

Published on Wednesday, March 5, 2014 by Informed Comment
Obama to Netanyahu: Israel faces Int’l Sanctions over “Permanent Occupation of West Bank”
by Juan Cole

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C., this week was even more of a disaster for him than might have been expected.

It did not help that the Crimea crisis had broken out, which rather cast a bad light on one country militarily occupying parts of another. Most observers in Europe and even some in the US could see the hypocrisy of the US denouncing Russian troops in Crimea but supporting Israeli troops in Hebron.

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Obama, who has been ambushed repeatedly by Netanyahu during their joint press conferences, this time ambushed Netanyahu instead, with an interview with the fanatically pro-Israel former Israeli prison guard at a notorious prison camp for Palestinians, Jeffrey Goldberg. Obama said,


Obama’s phrase “manage this” the referent is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which has been going on since 1967 and has now taken on an illegal character (you’re not allowed in military occupation to flood your population into the occupied territory, nor to systematically confiscate property from the occupied population, nor to target civilians among them for punitive policies).

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Goldberg speculated that Obama was issuing a veiled threat when he warned that the US cannot protect Israel from growing sanctions if Netanyahu continues down his present path. I don’t think so. Obama could just have Samantha Powers decline to veto UN Security Council sanctions on Israel any time he liked. He won’t do it, because the Israel lobbies would cause trouble for him with Congress if he did.

What Obama was more likely saying was that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to respond to Israeli colonialism against the Palestinians is unfolding in other venues where the US government doesn’t have a veto. The US cannot force the European Union states to disregard EU law. It cannot forestall lawsuits by Palestinian concerns in Europe against European companies involved in helping occupy them. Moreover, now that Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN (as a result of a UN general assembly vote that the US could not prevent), it could take Israel to the International Criminal Court over criminal Israel actions in the Occupied territories. Obama was simply observing that as the scales fall from the world’s eyes, Israel will be subject to sanctions, and the US government cannot do anything about it.

Netanyahu and his right wing political coalition are in denial. They are addicted to occupation. Obama tried to stage an intervention. But addicts are not easy to persuade.

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2014/03/05-0