JERUSALEM (WJC)–The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing plans for a renewed halt of West Bank settlement building in exchange for a package of political and security guarantees by the United States. US President Barack Obama said this was “a signal that he is serious.”
The proposed 90-day construction freeze would only halt the construction in the West Bank and not in eastern Jerusalem, and Israel would be allowed to finish hundreds of homes already under construction in West Bank settlements, a diplomat familiar with the details told the news agency AP on Monday. The first, ten-month-long Israeli moratorium on settlement building ended in September.
The Palestinians were openly skeptical about a new moratorium. “If Netanyahu stops the settlements, we will go back to direct negotiations,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said. “President Obama knows very well that Netanyahu is responsible for stopping the negotiations,” he told AFP, adding: “He also knows very well that Netanyahu has the key to the negotiations, and that he has closed the door to negotiations and chosen settlements not peace.”
An Arab League official said that a three-month-long freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank would be unlikely to be enough to prompt Palestinian and Arab support for Mideast peace talks. ‘If the news is true about there being a settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem and that takes the criticism off Israel, I cannot imagine that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side or the Arab side,’ said Hesham Youssef, adding that the Arab League was waiting to see what Israel and the United States were going to offer the Palestinians before making any decisions. The Arab League is also mulling over alternative options to direct Palestinian-Israeli talks, one of which may include seeking United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state.
Defense Minister and Labor Party leader Ehud Barak said on Monday that Israel had to secure a deal with the Obama administration to pull the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, in order to keep the upper hand in the Middle East peace process. “There are two options,” Barak told Israel’s ‘Army Radio’: “Either we reach understandings with the Americans to find a way to force the Palestinians to sit around the negotiating table, or the Palestinians and the Arab world will reach understanding with the Americans and it will be us eating frogs.” The proposed deal reportedly also includes a US undertaking not to request a further extension of the building freeze, and to veto any attempt by the Palestinians to win United Nations recognition of their state unilaterally.
Obama administration officials believe that after a second 90-day construction freeze, assuming that the Israeli government approves it, the settlements issue will lose its sting, provided that Israel and the Palestinians make enough progress on the contours of a future Palestinian state. A person close to the negotiations told the ‘New York Times’ that, under the most likely outcome, the two sides would agree that several large West Bank settlement blocks be added to Israeli territory, with Israel giving a commensurate amount of land to compensate the Palestinians.
According to Israel media reports, the Israeli Cabinet is split over a new settlement moratorium, but Netanyahu will probably be able to muster a majority of his Security Cabinet to approve the plan. However, his majority will be a razor-thin one, made possible only if ministers of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party either abstain or absent themselves from the vote. Shas chairman Eli Yishai said his party would take such a step “if it is made clear in a letter from the president of the United States that construction will take place in Jerusalem immediately, and that after 90 days, it will be possible to build everywhere, without restrictions.”
According to the ‘Haaretz’ newspaper, Shas’ abstention would presumably give Netanyahu a 7-6 majority for the freeze, since votes in favor are expected from himself, three other ministers of his Likud party (Yuval Steinitz, Gideon Sa’ar and Dan Meridor ), both Labor ministers (Ehud Barak and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer) and Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman. The six opponents are expected to be the three Yisrael Beiteinu ministers (Avigdor Lieberman, Uzi Landau and Yitzhak Aharonovitch) and the three remaining Likud ministers (Moshe Ya’alon, Silvan Shalom and Benny Begin).
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress