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Israel and the Arabs: Dangerous real estate

This article is more than 14 years old
Editorial

In most countries, housing starts are a statistic for the back of the business pages. In the West Bank they are the stuff of war and peace. Never more so than at this moment, when President Obama is trying to get serious negotiations under way again between Israel and the Palestinians. His special envoy, George Mitchell, has been made dizzy by the arcane distinctions the Israelis make between apartments not yet begun and those allegedly requiring just one more visit from the plumber or the electrician. The Israelis seem to have wilfully confused their own planning laws with the requirements of peace, and a retreat on their part, perhaps with a little fudging from the Arab side, is badly needed.

One thing is clear: the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has approved in advance more housing units in the occupied territories than were built annually before limits were placed on construction, and before the Americans asked for a freeze on settlement building. In his view he can now safely accept a freeze, because he has got at least a year's worth of building in the pipeline. This may have solved the difficulties he has within his party, his coalition and the Knesset, but it is once again an example of Israel negotiating with itself rather than with the Arabs.

The symbolic importance of a settlement freeze is critical for both sides. Palestinians and other Arabs would undoubtedly interpret a freeze as an admission that the whole settlement enterprise is illegitimate. Prince Turki bin Faisal, for example, recently accused Israel of "stalling as it adds more illegal settlers to those already occupying Palestinian land". Above all, Arabs want to see American strength used to make Israel do something it does not wish to do. The Israeli government, accustomed to being the tail that wags the dog, very much wishes to avoid that precedent. It wants good governance and order, as delivered by American-trained security forces, established in the West Bank before it makes any real concessions, and, even then, its idea of the powers and prerogatives of a Palestinian state falls well below Arab expectations.

The Israelis have also upped the ante by linking progress toward peace with relations with Iran. What they appear to be signalling, is that if the United States and other western countries put real pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Israel will move on the Palestinian issue. If not, the implicit threat is not only that there will be no movement on Palestine, but that the Israelis will strike Iran militarily, which, among other things, would leave Obama's Middle Eastern policy in ruins. That way lies madness.

More on this story

More on this story

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