Israel and its West Bank settlements: Off the hook, for now  

Oleh:

The Economist

Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine
Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 392 no. 8650 (Sep. 2009), page 52.
Topik: Israel; Binyamin Netanyahu; West Bank; Barack Obama; Palestine

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Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.57 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada

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THE Israeli right, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, the country’s ebullient prime minister, is celebrating the end of a settlement freeze that never began. “I understand English,” said Mr Netanyahu, after meeting Barack Obama and the Palestinians’ leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in New York. “Restraint and freeze are two different things.” Mr Netanyahu was referring to a statement by President Obama at the much heralded meeting on September 22nd. “Israelis have…discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity,” he said. “But they need to translate these discussions into real action.” For Mr Netanyahu, those words marked the failure of Mr Obama’s effort, which he began soon after taking office, to persuade Israel to stop all building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, the mainly Arab side of the city which most Palestinians want as the capital of an independent state. Mr Obama, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and his special envoy, George Mitchell, will persist with their dogged diplomacy to get the Israelis and Palestinians talking again. And Mr Netanyahu says he will continue to “restrain settlement activity”. But if the past two decades are a guide, this means he will not approve new settlements but will let existing ones steadily expand, particularly those close to the pre-1967 border (see map). Mr Netanyahu’s immediate purpose is to keep his awkward coalition intact. But his longer-term strategy is to ensure that a future Palestinian state, which Mr Netanyahu half-heartedly says he would tolerate, is tightly circumscribed. Palestinians and more doveish Israelis say that the sort of state Mr Netanyahu has in mind would never be accepted by the Palestinians—or the rest of the world.

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