On
Oct. 1, 2014, President Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The
meeting followed on the heels of Israel's announcement that its
government had approved the building of 2,610 new housing units in East
Jerusalem for Jewish settlers. The Israeli announcement had been
criticized by the Obama administration's spokesman Josh Earnest who
warned that the move would "distance Israel from even its closest
allies."
The morning before Netanyahu's scheduled meeting with President Obama, the Associated Press reported that Arab residents of Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem awakened to find that Israeli security guards and young male volunteers were protecting 25 apartment units in their hard-scrabble neighborhood and in an adjacent area. The surreptitious purchase of those units represented the largest incursion by settlers since since rightwing Israeli Jews began to buy properties through straws in that overwhelmingly Arab neighborhood two decades ago.
The organization that orchestrated the purchases of those units, the Elad Foundation, described the acquisitions as perfectly legal and said it had settled hundreds of Israeli Jews among an estimated Arab population estimated of 30,000 in an area it calls the City of David - a place where Jewish tradition holds King David established Jerusalem as Judaism's central holy city. Consistent with the President Obama's foreign policy objectives, Josh Earnest also condemned the occupation of the properties "by individuals who are associated with an organization whose agenda, by definition, stokes tensions between Israelis and Palestinians."
During his meeting at the White House, Netanyahu guardedly expressed his support for a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state at some future date, a commitment that he had studiously avoided making at his UN General Assembly speech earlier. "I remain committed to the vision of peace for two states for two peoples based on mutual recognition and rock solid security arrangements. We should make use of the new opportunities think outside of the box and see how we can include the Arab countries to advance this very hopeful agenda," Netanyahu declared.
During that meeting, as reported by the Israeli media and the Islam Times, Netanyahu expressed annoyance with the Obama's administration's criticisms of his support for the expansion of settlers into Abab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank after he had once again presented the President Obama with a two fait accompli that would only further stock the indignation of the Israeli Arab and Palestinian populations and render a two state solution as virtually impossible. Public radio quoted the ever petulant Netanyahu as urging US President Barack Obama to "study the facts and details before making statements" about the settlement plan.
In an interview on "Face The Nation" the following day, Netanyahu characterized the administration's continued criticism of his party's support for settler expansion as "baffling" and as "against the American values." And it doesn't bode well for peace," he contended. "The idea that we'd have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace, I think it's anti-peace."
Ever since the 1967 Six-Day war, Israeli settlements have continued to expand throughout the West Bank, into East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights that was seized from Syria despite. These expansions have continued, notwithstanding condemnation by the United Nations which has repeatedly stated that Israel's construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The International Court of Justice has also stated in a 2004 advisory opinion that these settlements are illegal and, in April 2012, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon emphasized that the illegal expansion of the settlers in the occupied territories "runs contrary to Israel's obligations under the Road Map and repeated Quartet calls for the parties to refrain from provocations."
Within Israel, the settlers - with the support of religious and secular rightwing nationalists - are determined to "reclaim" all of "Greater Israel" - i.e. the lands of ancient Judea and Samaria that they claim Yahweh granted to them in perpetuity. The fact that many of these rightwing zealots may have recently immigrated to Israel from Brooklyn or Odessa, or that Christians and Muslims have populated the lands of greater Israel for more the past 1900 years are irrelevant to these religious fanatics.
The continued expansion of the settler movement and the intransigence of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition government would be impossible were it not for the largely uncritical support that Israel has enjoyed from the U.S. political establishment - including every presidential administration since Harry Truman and an overwhelming majority of past and present U.S. Senators and Representatives. Beating the drums for the Israeli lobby are prominent mainstream Jewish organizations such as American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as well as various evangelical Protestant organizations such as Christians United for Israel, and rightwing billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson.
As a result of the efforts of the Israeli lobby in the U.S., and a timid political elite who are fearful of criticizing the policies of the current Israeli government lest they be accused of ant-Semitism, Israel has received more than 130 billion dollars of U.S. assistance since its founding. Today, Israel has a GDP of over $130 billion yet the U.S. continues to pay for 23-25% of Israel's military budget annually.
President Obama's criticism of the settler encroachments in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank do reflect the best of American values. Sadly, the kind of territorial expansion that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist government endorse are, in fact, the antithesis: They are reminiscent of the worst of this country's past - when this country's westward expansion was justified on the basis of an equally messianic fantasy that went by the name of Manifest Destiny. It led to the virtual extermination of the indigenous aboriginal population.
The difference today is that, while the Indians lacked firepower and modern technology, Israel, the Arab countries of the Middle East and Iran could easily ignite that region and the world in a conflagration from which there will be no opportunity to offer subsequent mea culpas.