Obama turned Israeli settlements into a deal breaker

By Dani Dayan July 2, 2014

Israeli announcements regarding settlement construction were not the reason the peace talks failed; the European and U.S. reactions to those announcements were a much more decisive factor.

Israel’s announcements regarding construction in Judea and Samaria were not the reason for the failure of the most recent talks between Israel and the Palestinians; the European and American reactions to those announcements were a much more decisive factor. Since the talks ended, U.S. officials have been feeding the media with hints and leaks blaming Israel for the failure, supposedly due to its numerous declarations of renewed construction. Examples include Secretary of State John Kerry’s unforgettable “poof” remark to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and emissary Martin Indyk’s not-so-discreet conversations in a trendy Washington, D.C. bar. Kerry and Indyk made such statements in more official settings as well, and even hinted that similar sentiments were emanating from the Oval Office. “14,000 new settlement units announced since we began negotiations,” cried the secretary of state, adding, “it’s very difficult for any leader to deal under that cloud.”

Analysts who were briefed by senior Obama administration officials explained that one could not expect Mahmoud Abbas or any other Palestinian leadership to negotiate while Israel was building in areas that were designated to be part of a future Palestinian state. Even if we ignore the fact that the U.S. knew ahead of time that there would be announcements of settlement construction during the negotiations – as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg – and that the number of housing units mentioned by Kerry and Indyk were grossly exaggerated – even if we completely ignore these decisive facts, the American accusations against Israel are baseless.


That, and more: The great majority of those declarations – at least 80 percent – pertained to construction in Jerusalem, or what have been called “settlement blocs” that would remain in Israeli hands, even if the negotiations were to bear fruit.

But all of this is inconsequential in light of the fact that not a single one of the “announced” housing units was going to be constructed during the negotiations. Ground would not have been broken on the lands included in the announcements for at least two years, if at all. In the past, many such land tenders remained on paper, and were not transformed into completed structures, for various reasons, economic or otherwise.

remainder: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-peace-conference/1.601479