Israeli policy shaping “final-status” issues since the advent of the Netanyahu government in mid-1996 has changed markedly. Whereas previous Israeli governments refused as a matter of principle to delineate Israel’s territorial demands, government members have embraced the notion of a spirited public debate on the territorial requirements Israel will insist upon as part of a final-status agreement with the Palestinians.
The September visit of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the Middle East reinvigorated efforts to formally resume Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and offered the Clinton administration an opportunity to highlight its support for an undefined “time-out” in Israel’s expansion of settlements.
The formal framework of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, set out in the Oslo I, Oslo II, and Hebron agreements, has been in crisis since Israel’s decision in March to begin construction on a new settlement at Jebel Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) in annexed East Jerusalem.
The streets of East Jerusalem’s commercial center begin to empty in mid-afternoon, as the workday ends and people return to their homes. By evening, when Ramallah, Nablus, and Gaza are teeming with people strolling the sidewalks, chatting on street corners, and dining in restaurants, Jerusalem’s main thoroughfare, Salaheddin Street, is as quiet as a graveyard. Hardly a soul can be seen along the road’s shuttered shops. The coffeehouses are all but empty, the few restaurants filled with foreigners. Apart from an occasional Israeli patrol, the alleys of the Old City nearby are deserted.
The Clinton administration is faced with an ongoing crisis in relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). This crisis has less to do with any particular incident than with the growing Palestinian recognition that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an unreliable partner in the process established by his immediate predecessors.
One of the issues at the top of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda during his February visit to Washington was the extent of Israel’s planned redeployments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are scheduled to take place in three stages during the next 18 months, beginning on March 7.
The Clinton administration is directing more critical public attention toward Israel’s settlement expansion policies than at any time since it came to power in 1992.
When assessing the colonization policies of Israel’s two main parties–Labor and Likud–it is instructive to recall a bit of Israeli folk wisdom. “A Likud government,” the saying goes, “announces ten settlements but builds only one, while a Labor government announces one but builds ten.”
The settlement policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu remain a work in progress, three months after the defeat of the Labor government led by Shimon Peres. While initial government intentions for settlement expansion during the coming four years do not exceed Labor’s settlement program, the idea of settlement is enjoying a renaissance and the settlers themselves are being welcomed once again into the Israeli political mainstream.
Nineteen years ago Menachem Begin defeated Shimon Peres, becoming Israel’s first Likud prime minister. One of Begin’s first official acts was to travel to Elon Moreh, a rough Israeli settlement perched on a hilltop outside Nablus. There, among the faithful, Begin proclaimed victory on behalf of the proponents of Greater Israel.
“There will be many more Elon Morehs,” he thundered. “This is liberated Israeli land, and we call on young volunteers in the country and the diaspora to come and settle here.” Today Greater Israel is dead, defeated by the intifada and buried by the Oslo agreements. Begin’s heir, Benyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, acknowledges that the Likud dream of Greater Israel is beyond his grasp.