Netanyahu misreads Obama on settlements

The Israeli right is overjoyed at the opportunity to gloat over the weakness of US President Barack Obama. The Yesha Council, the settlement umbrella organization, says that instead of dabbling with a handful of houses built by Jews in their historical homeland and trying to intimidate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama would be better demonstrating resolve vis-a-vis Russian President Vladimir Putin, and get him out of the Crimean Peninsula.

This insignificant "triumph" blinds their eyes from viewing the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as yet another warning signal, of what is likely to happen to a binational state whose peoples cannot free themselves from baggage of the past.

In an interview given by Obama to Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg (March 2), Obama acknowledged that, in fact, there was a limit to the power of the man who bears the title "leader of the free world." The United States is no longer willing to jump head first into every gory arena in the world, including the Middle East. That is the meaning of this key sentence in the interview: “If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction,” Obama said, “If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”

To remove any doubt regarding his meaning, Obama added, “We had to stand up in the Security Council in ways that 20 years ago would have involved far more European support, far more support from other parts of the world when it comes to Israel’s position.” This distinction is most probably connected to what Meretz Party leader Zehava Gal-On heard from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on March 3. Abbas warned the Israeli guest that failure of US Secretary of State John Kerry to cobble together a framework agreement for a permanent agreement, and continued building in the settlement, will leave him with no choice but to turn to the United Nations institutions.

Obama’s words were geared to get a message across to Netanyahu: the US president is sick and tired of fighting on Netanyahu’s behalf vis-a-vis the Europeans and automatically vetoing their proposals condemning the settlements. An Israeli source met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and said that the German friend — considered Israel's defensive wall within Europe — told him that Netanyahu's settlement policy evokes great skepticism in her as to the sincerity of his peace policy.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/israel-aipac-boycott-settlement-constructions-iran-obama.html#ixzz2vJ21fw2J