The concrete and significant Israeli moves on settlements have all been in the direction of unreciprocated concessions. When Netanyahu announced his temporary freeze it was hailed by Clinton as an "unprecedented." Since that praise naturally sent the Palestinians into fits the Obama administration promptly backtracked. It also totally failed to deliver on its promise of international support for the freeze, a nice additional bait-and-switch. Instead the UN condemned Israel for not going far enough.
All that left Netanyahu feeling that there's nothing he can do to avoid US and international disapprobation, which is not where you want someone when you're asking them to take "risks for peace." An Israeli Prime Minister contemplating territorial concessions needs to know that he can count on international security assurances should things go wrong. So one of Biden's two goals for his trip was to give Netanyahu some much-delayed recognition and support.
Then a couple of Israeli officials from the government's most junior coalition partner made a symbolic announcement about East Jerusalem construction. Netanyahu didn't know about it. Biden's response - nonetheless - was to humiliate the Israeli PrimeMinister , keeping Netanyahu and his wife waiting 90 minutes into dinner and then issuing an unprecedented condemnation. Netanyahu found out about the statement during dinner.
That treatment precisely mirrors what happened on Netanyahu's November trip to DC, when Obama dragged him around the carpet before approving a Monday meeting. The White House kept the Israelis in limbo until the night before, continuously creating new and changing prerequisites. The next day Obama arrived late, highlighting the priority he places on the US-Israeli alliance. Netanyahu offered to make additional concessions to the Palestinians anyway. Obama's response was to emphasize that East Jerusalem is not Israeli and to link Palestinian terrorism to Israeli construction in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood. That last part was so stupid that lefty Jeffrey Goldberg accused the President of inventing issues and excusing Palestinian violence.
So say what you will about Biden's ham-fisted diplomacy. In this rare instance he's merely following the party line. First the insult - language, per the WaPo, that is "rarely used in diplomatic terms when criticizing the behavior of close allies" - and now the fallout:
Biden shouldn't have been surprised by the announcement, which was delivered by a ministry under the control of a right-wing religious party in PrimeMinister Binyamin Netanyahu's fractious coalition. The ambushing of high-level American visitors to Jerusalem via the announcement of new settlements is a tried-and-true tactic of Israeli hardliners... Over the years U.S. envoys from Baker to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have learned that the trick is to sidestep such broadsides, expressing disapproval without allowing the toxic settlement issue to take center stage...Most Israeli settlement announcements, including this one, are pure symbolism: No ground will be broken anytime soon, and even if the homes are eventually constructed they won't stand in the way of a Palestinian state. By that measure, Biden flunked. Interrupted in the middle of what was supposed to be a day of love-bombing Israelis with speeches and other demonstrations of U.S. support, he kept Netanyahu and his wife waiting for 90 minutes into a scheduled dinner before issuing a statement that harshly criticized the interior ministry's announcement. Biden chose to use a word -- "condemn" -- that is very rarely employed in U.S. statements about Israel, even though he and his staff knew that Netanyahu himself had been blindsided by the settlement announcement.
The backstory on this is that the Shas-controlled Interior Ministry is kind of run by clowns, and so these things always happen and they're always ignored. Instead this administration - which will go out of its way to excuse and reinterpret genuinely intransigent political declarations from our Iranian enemies - decided to trigger a diplomatic row with our Israeli allies. Again.
It's all going according to plan, isn't it?
References:
* Israel putting forth 'unprecedented' concessions, Clinton says [WaPo]
* PA: Clinton hurting peace talks [JPost]
* U.S. falls short in bid to gain support for Israel's settlement freeze [Ha'aretz]
* UN official: Settlement freeze falls short [YNet]
* Biden's Israel visit is a year too late [Ha'aretz]
* Obama Hosts Netanyahu [WSJ]
* PM offers Obama additional gestures to get Abbas on board in peace talks [Ha'aretz]
* Obama Declares Support For Dividing Jerusalem [One Jerusalem]
* Did Obama Inadvertently Excuse Palestinian Violence? [Jeffrey Goldberg]
* U.S. condemns Israel's plans to build housing in east Jerusalem [WaPo]
* Biden stumbles into Middle East trap [Diehl / WaPo]
* Obama: We're Giving Iran More Time Because Of Their "Unsettled Political Situation" [MR]
* It's Official: Obama Policy Triggers "Most Tense Encounter" In Years Between US And Israel (Plus: Can You Guess MR's Blind Item?) [MR]
* The WH's Eight-Step Plan For Detonating The US-Israel Relationship [MR]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Jewish Politics
* Israel
