John Kerry speaking at the
State Department on Wednesday. Credit Zach Gibson/Getty Images
In a speech this week laying
out the Obama administration’s parameters for a final peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, Secretary of State John Kerry stated
what has been obvious to most observers for many years: that Israel’s
construction of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land has all but
destroyed the two-state solution. Unfortunately, Mr. Kerry’s speech offers far
too little, and comes much too late.
In 2013, shortly after he
became secretary of state, Mr. Kerry warned that there was only a two-year
window left for creating a Palestinian state. Now, almost four years later and
in the last days of his tenure, he has finally laid out parameters for a
two-state solution. But with President-elect Donald J. Trump suggesting he will
align the United States with Israel’s extreme pro-settler government, the
Obama/Kerry parameters will most likely be consigned to oblivion like those
promulgated by Bill Clinton 16 years ago.
During Mr. Obama’s eight years
in office, the illegal Israeli
settler population has swelled by 100,000, to well over 600,000.
Simultaneously, for eight years Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel has directed a barrage of calculated slights, insults and acts of
disrespect at the president of the United States. The Obama administration has
finally reacted with Mr. Kerry’s speech and by allowing
Resolution 2334, which condemns Israeli settlement expansion, to pass in
the United Nations Security Council. By doing so, the United States simply
acted in accordance with international law and the global consensus of nearly
50 years.
Meanwhile, a third generation
of Palestinian children is growing up under a brutal occupation and Gaza has
been under siege for a decade. Palestinians are obliged to seek the permission
of the Israeli military for the most basic of needs, such as medical treatment,
or to travel abroad or even just to Jerusalem. As Mr. Kerry asked in his speech:
“Would an Israeli accept living that way? Would an American accept living that
way?” It is no wonder that the hopelessness caused by Israeli settlement
expansion and land theft in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and the
closing of all avenues for realization of the aspirations of Palestinian youth
have produced grave social ills, as well as outbreaks of violence.
The Kerry parameters and
Resolution 2334 are not going to change much in this dismal picture nor will
they save Mr. Obama’s tepid legacy where Palestine is concerned. The resolution
has no built-in enforcement mechanism, and it is not necessarily binding.
However, it calls
upon states to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the
territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” This
provides the international legal justification for sanctions by states,
boycotts of goods produced in settlements, and divestment by unions,
foundations and universities of assets in companies that support the
colonization of Palestinian land.
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Wide support for such actions
already exists, even in the United States. A recent poll
conducted by the Brookings Institution found that 46 percent of Americans
believed that their government should impose sanctions against Israel over the
construction of new settlements; the figure rises to 60 percent among
Democrats.
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Maybe, just maybe, had there
been several more, equally firmly worded Security Council resolutions over the
past eight years, that might have tempered the sense of impunity that the
Israeli government and the settler movement have enjoyed for so long. Perhaps
in that case Israelis would have discovered that they could not continue with
endless settlement expansion and obtain American largess at the same time.
Perhaps being confronted by enough 14-0-1 votes, representing the view of
virtually every country on the planet, would have caused the Netanyahu
government to pause in its frenzied colonization campaign.
Or perhaps not. Since Friday’s
vote, Mr. Netanyahu has recalled Israeli ambassadors to two of the countries
that sponsored the resolution and temporarily limited working ties with 12 of
the Security Council members that voted for it. He has accused the Obama
administration of a “shameful
ambush,” as if the resolution were a dirty trick instead of a statement in
line with longstanding American policy and international law. And his
government has vowed to press forward with plans to build even more
settlements.
What is clear is that the
Netanyahu government will never willingly endorse a peaceful and fair
resolution of this conflict. If the Trump administration chooses to join Mr.
Netanyahu on such a course, that makes the need for pressure in forums such as
the United Nations, as well as through boycotts, divestment and sanctions, all
the more necessary. European countries, Russia, China, India, and civil society
in the United States and elsewhere must act decisively to underscore the global
isolation of the proponents of unending occupation and colonization in
Palestine. As too little and too late as Resolution 2334 and the Kerry speech
were, they do offer an opening for an overdue global response to the arrogance
of the Israeli and American enablers of the denial of the inalienable rights of
the Palestinian people.
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