Prepare to freeze

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Israel and the West Bank by Nasra Ismail and Biodun Iginla, BBC News. Nasra Ismail reported from Jerusalem Sep 8th 2009 | JERUSALEM
From Economist.com Israel's prime minister faces a difficult path as he prepares for a possible halt to new settlements
AP THE Israeli government’s approval this week of 455 new housing units in the West Bank settlements was announced with a wink and a nod, and seems to have elicited winks and nods all round. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is expected soon to agree, reluctantly and under American pressure, to a temporary freeze on settlement building, and the new homes are widely seen as an act of face-saving political expediency on his part.
Expressions of protest and disapproval from foreign governments, upset Palestinian negotiators and domestic doveish critics had a predictable air to them. An American State Department spokesman deflected reporters’ irate questions on the matter with equanimity. He declined to consider whether the administration felt it was being spat on, and said that a planned trip to the region by America's envoy, George Mitchell, would go ahead as planned at the weekend.
document.write('<script language="JavaScript" src="/s/event-4113588/aHR0cDovL2FkLmRvdWJsZWNsaWNrLm5ldC9hZGovd2ViLmU= conomist.com/all_articles;nav=world_politics_v_middle_east_and_africa;nh=C893970D;audience_topic=worldpolitics;audience_channel=globalisation;!c=14398223;pos=mpu_left;tile=4;sz=350x300,336x236,300x250,250x250;subs=' + isSubscriber() + segQS + ';ord=' + ord + '?" type="text/javascript"><\/script&gt;'); &amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;A TARGET="_blank" HREF="/s/event-4113588/aHR0cDovL2FkLmRvdWJsZWNsaWNrLm5ldC9jbGljayUyNTNC h=v8/38a3/3/0/%2a/r%3B214743499%3B1-0%3B0%3B36554486%3B4307-300/250%3B31795881/31813757/1%3B%3B%7Efdr%3D214745455%3B0-0%3B6%3B31658731%3B4307-300/250%3B31406937/31424813/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.clearnewworld.com/?cid=US1000001474"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;IMG SRC="/s/event-4113588/aHR0cDovL20xLjJtZG4ubmV0LzE2NzI5ODEvMzAweDI1MF8= SupplyChain.gif" BORDER=0&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/A&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="/s/event-4113588/aHR0cDovL2FkLmRvdWJsZWNsaWNrLm5ldC9qdW1wL3dlYg== .economist.com/all_articles;nav=world_politics_v_middle_east_and_africa;nh=C893970D;audience_topic=worldpolitics;audience_channel=globalisation;!c=14398223;pos=mpu_left;tile=4;sz=350x300,336x236,300x250,250x250;ord=776647783?" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img src="/s/event-4113588/aHR0cDovL2FkLmRvdWJsZWNsaWNrLm5ldC9hZC93ZWIuZWM= onomist.com/all_articles;nav=world_politics_v_middle_east_and_africa;nh=C893970D;audience_topic=worldpolitics;audience_channel=globalisation;!c=14398223;pos=mpu_left;tile=4;sz=350x300,336x236,300x250,250x250;ord=776647783?" width="350" height="300" border="0" alt=""&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; Mr Netanyahu has a delicate path to follow. Among the settlers and on the political far-right, the impending freeze is excoriated as a sell-out. Their anger and disappointment may have been reinforced after a revelation in Haaretz on Tuesday September 8th that most of the new houses had been approved before, and so would not really add much to the existing situation.
All the partners, diplomatic and political, in the complicated negotiating process seem somehow to expect this sort of fleet footwork from Mr Netanyahu, who has danced a deft course between pragmatism and extremism throughout his public career.
The saga of prevarication surrounding settlements has been a long one. Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin registered the first American-Israeli “misunderstanding” immediately after the Camp David summit in 1978. The American president thought he had obtained a freeze for the duration of the peace talks. The Israeli prime minister insisted that it would only last for three months.
Thirty-one years and almost 300,000 settlers (in the West Bank) later, the duration of the latest freeze is still to be resolved between Mr Mitchell, a former Democratic Party senator who brokered the Northern Ireland peace deal, and Mr Netanyahu when they meet in Jerusalem. In addition to the 455 new-old permits, Mr Netanyahu is holding out for the right to complete some 2,500 dwellings now in various stages of construction in the settlements. That would mean, observers point out, that if the freeze were fixed for nine months or a year, some building would be going on throughout that time. Mr Netanyahu would be able to point to it as evidence of his unbent neck, in the hope of allaying nationalist ire that could erode his rightist-religious coalition.
That ire seems fairly under control thus far. Mr Netanyahu invested much of the past weekend in conversations with ministers and Knesset members of his Likud Party, focusing on potential troublemakers. Muttering is under way. His two deputy prime ministers, Silvan Shalom and Moshe Ya’alon, have given voice to their displeasure. “We didn’t get back to power in order to enact someone else’s policy,” Mr Shalom said on Sunday, in an apparent reference to the defence minister and Labour Party leader, Ehud Barak. Mr Barak has been heavily involved in the negotiations with Mr Mitchell and will claim some of the credit if the freeze is agreed.
Mr Mitchell is expected to convey “gestures of normalisation” from a number of moderate Arab states in recognition of Israel’s settlement freeze. These could include the reopening of interest offices and some trade and tourism ties. The United States has pressed for them as a way of persuading the Israeli public that a freeze is not an end in itself but rather the means to put both bilateral (Israeli-Palestinian) and broader regional peace efforts back on track. If Mr Mitchell strikes a deal next week, President Barack Obama hopes to announce a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks during the UN General Assembly this month.

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