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America’s Abstention at the UN: Well Played!
December 25, 2016
We congratulate the United States for its abstention in the UN Security Council vote on Resolution 2334, which condemns Israel for its continued settlement activities in the West Bank. The measure passed on December 23 with 14 nations in favor, none opposed, and the U.S. abstaining. In the past when such resolutions have come to the Security Council, the U.S. exercised its veto in order to protect Israel, but not this time.
As U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power stated, the government’s long-standing position ever since the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon is that continued settlement activity “harms the viability of a negotiated two-state outcome.” We agree. That continued settlement activity interferes with the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beyond dispute. This truth is self-evident, and has been so to every American administration whether Democrat or Republican.
Critics of the resolution call it one-sided because it doesn’t focus equally on Palestinian terrorism. This is certainly a legitimate concern, and Palestinian leaders need to do their part to curb these activities. Nevertheless, while the cessation of terrorism can restore the status quo, expanding the settlements changes the landscape and cannot be easily reversed.
Each new settlement reduces the size of the territory that would be available to Palestine, and each new road connecting these settlements together intrudes into what remains of that territory. Hence, more than being a measure to preserve Israel’s prerogatives in some future negotiation, expansion of settlements in the West Bank is inimical to a negotiated peace agreement.
Peace requires direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, so that both sides can take ownership over the results. For negotiations to succeed, it will require that Israel cease settlement activity in the West Bank. A viable Palestinian state to emerge from any conceivable negotiation will need contiguous territory where its residents are free to travel and live anywhere within its borders and build a viable national society and culture, free from Israeli interference. Settlements of Israelis deep within its territory, along with the provision for Israeli forces to secure that settlement, would be as if a foreign body were within it, which would threaten the state’s viability from the outset. It is unimaginable that the Palestinians would agree to such terms.
Yet, the Netanyahu government has found it politically expedient to actively support the expansion of settlements. It fought this resolution tooth and nail, and enlisted American President-elect Donald Trump in its cause.
Furthermore, when Israel’s Supreme Court determined that a tiny settlement of a few dozen families called Amona was illegal, the Netanyahu government bent over backwards to be solicitous of the settlers there and is underwriting their resettlement with financial incentives from the public purse. The government is clearly on the side of the settlers, who claim it is Israel’s right to settle widely throughout the West Bank, to which they give the biblical names “Judea and Samaria.” We can only hope that by this resolution, Israel will recognize that international opposition to its settlement policy is firm and that it will pay a price for continuing to ignore it.
The outgoing Obama administration, by abstaining rather than vetoing Resolution 2334, has courageously spoken to this truth. The international community understands it clearly, which is why when Egypt, which initially sponsored the resolution, bowed to pressure from the incoming Trump administration to postpone it, other temporary members of the Security Council led by New Zealand determined to cosponsor it themselves. We applaud them for doing so.
However, even if Israel abides by the resolution and ceases new settlement construction, it will not be nearly enough to resolve this issue. There needs to be provision for the more than 50,000 Israeli settlers already living in settlements that are east of even its own separation wall—not to mention the border envisioned in this website—in territory that in a final agreement will become Palestine. Yet right now Israel is doing nothing to prepare its settler population for what will happen in that eventuality; on the contrary it is leading them to think that their occupation will be permanent.
For a peace agreement to work, both the Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel need to prepare their populations to accept it. The Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendants will have to accept that most of them will never return to their homes that are now within Israel, and Israelis who have settled in the West Bank beyond the agreed-upon border will have to accept that their homes will end up within Palestine.
Although incoming President Trump objected to this resolution, we believe it will eventually become obvious even to him that a deal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require confronting Israel on the issue of settlements. Mr. Trump claims he aspires to broker a peace agreement during his presidency. If so, he may one day come to recognize that the Obama administration, by allowing this resolution to pass, has done him a favor.
We congratulate the United States for its abstention in the UN Security Council vote on Resolution 2334, which condemns Israel for its continued settlement activities in the West Bank. The measure passed on December 23 with 14 nations in favor, none opposed, and the U.S. abstaining. In the past when such resolutions have come to the Security Council, the U.S. exercised its veto in order to protect Israel, but not this time.
As U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power stated, the government’s long-standing position ever since the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon is that continued settlement activity “harms the viability of a negotiated two-state outcome.” We agree. That continued settlement activity interferes with the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beyond dispute. This truth is self-evident, and has been so to every American administration whether Democrat or Republican.
Critics of the resolution call it one-sided because it doesn’t focus equally on Palestinian terrorism. This is certainly a legitimate concern, and Palestinian leaders need to do their part to curb these activities. Nevertheless, while the cessation of terrorism can restore the status quo, expanding the settlements changes the landscape and cannot be easily reversed.
Each new settlement reduces the size of the territory that would be available to Palestine, and each new road connecting these settlements together intrudes into what remains of that territory. Hence, more than being a measure to preserve Israel’s prerogatives in some future negotiation, expansion of settlements in the West Bank is inimical to a negotiated peace agreement.
Peace requires direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, so that both sides can take ownership over the results. For negotiations to succeed, it will require that Israel cease settlement activity in the West Bank. A viable Palestinian state to emerge from any conceivable negotiation will need contiguous territory where its residents are free to travel and live anywhere within its borders and build a viable national society and culture, free from Israeli interference. Settlements of Israelis deep within its territory, along with the provision for Israeli forces to secure that settlement, would be as if a foreign body were within it, which would threaten the state’s viability from the outset. It is unimaginable that the Palestinians would agree to such terms.
Yet, the Netanyahu government has found it politically expedient to actively support the expansion of settlements. It fought this resolution tooth and nail, and enlisted American President-elect Donald Trump in its cause.
Furthermore, when Israel’s Supreme Court determined that a tiny settlement of a few dozen families called Amona was illegal, the Netanyahu government bent over backwards to be solicitous of the settlers there and is underwriting their resettlement with financial incentives from the public purse. The government is clearly on the side of the settlers, who claim it is Israel’s right to settle widely throughout the West Bank, to which they give the biblical names “Judea and Samaria.” We can only hope that by this resolution, Israel will recognize that international opposition to its settlement policy is firm and that it will pay a price for continuing to ignore it.
The outgoing Obama administration, by abstaining rather than vetoing Resolution 2334, has courageously spoken to this truth. The international community understands it clearly, which is why when Egypt, which initially sponsored the resolution, bowed to pressure from the incoming Trump administration to postpone it, other temporary members of the Security Council led by New Zealand determined to cosponsor it themselves. We applaud them for doing so.
However, even if Israel abides by the resolution and ceases new settlement construction, it will not be nearly enough to resolve this issue. There needs to be provision for the more than 50,000 Israeli settlers already living in settlements that are east of even its own separation wall—not to mention the border envisioned in this website—in territory that in a final agreement will become Palestine. Yet right now Israel is doing nothing to prepare its settler population for what will happen in that eventuality; on the contrary it is leading them to think that their occupation will be permanent.
For a peace agreement to work, both the Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel need to prepare their populations to accept it. The Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendants will have to accept that most of them will never return to their homes that are now within Israel, and Israelis who have settled in the West Bank beyond the agreed-upon border will have to accept that their homes will end up within Palestine.
Although incoming President Trump objected to this resolution, we believe it will eventually become obvious even to him that a deal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require confronting Israel on the issue of settlements. Mr. Trump claims he aspires to broker a peace agreement during his presidency. If so, he may one day come to recognize that the Obama administration, by allowing this resolution to pass, has done him a favor.