Saudi Arabia has added its voice to the flap that opened new American-Israeli discord over settlements and the prospect for resumption of peace talks. On Monday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin told a Washington conference of AIPAC, “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby,” that “Jerusalem is not a settlement” that it was Israel’s capital. The comments were the latest round in a serious disruption in US-Israeli relations since Israel announced new home construction in East Jerusalem in the midst of Vice President’s visit to Israel. The dispute was characterized by Israel Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren as the gravest crisis in US-Israel relations in 35 years according to Haaretz.com.
After Netanyahu’s AIPAC remarks a Saudi official, cited by the Saudi Press Agency, said Israel “blatantly confiscated Palestinian, Arab and Islamic land in Jerusalem without any regard to Palestinian, Arab and Islamic rights,” adding that, “Saudi Arabia has always called upon the international community to bear the responsibility of dealing with the Israeli one-sided defiance that usually opposes the peace process. The SPA statement, reported on in the Jerusalem Post ["Saudis slam PM's AIPAC speech," Jpost.com], called on the “Quartet” — a grouping of the UN, US, EU and Russia focused on Middle East peace — to clarify the situation of “Israeli arrogance .. defiance of international will as well as violation of all the international laws and legislations.”
Meanwhile Israel made a new announcement yesterday of further construction in East Jerusalem — a reference to the part of the city formerly under Arab rule and captured by Israel during the 1967 “Six-Day War” — even as Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington for direct meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama. This latest settler construction announcement, bound to be seen as another “in your face” move on the part of Israel and the Netanyahu coalition, is sure to complicate the efforts to get “proximity talks” back on track.
The Arab outrage over new settlement announcements highlights recent comments about the negative impact Israel’s activities in the occupied territories and the peace process impasse has on U.S. interests in the Middle East. A recent report discussed U.S. Central Command chief General David Petaeus’ staff surfacing concerns that “Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.” [See our post on "America's Regional Standing" of Mar 16] “Everywhere they went [CENTCOM officers surveying Arab leaders on behalf of Petraeus], the message was pretty humbling .. America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.”
General Petraeus’ warning may have been behind remarks by Vice President Joe Biden during his trip to Israel for meetings with Netanyahu. Mark Perry writing for Foreign Policy (FP.com): “This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.” Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: “The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.” The message couldn’t be plainer: Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.
The message was echoed by Saban Center for Middle East Policy scholar Shibley Telhami talking with CBSNews.com (in a video that accompanies this post), “The intensity of feelings in the Arab World is mostly related to this issue and yes that does play in to the hands of militants.” It was also the focus of a story by Judith Miller, writing in the Los Angeles Times last week ["The gulf in the Persian Gulf"] Saudi Arabia, said Miller, “is concerned about Iran’s growing influence in the Arab Middle East and the possibility that it will soon have nuclear weapons,” but Riyadh sees it as a “longer-term threat,[which] has taken a back seat to its concern about the lack of perceived progress in solving the Israel-Palestinian struggle.” [SUSRIS Blog - "Israel-Palestine Impasse Tops Iran on Riyadh’s Threat Matrix" - Mar 18]
The subject of Israeli settlements and their effect on the peace process was also on the mind of Ambassador Chas Freeman in a recent exclusive SUSRIS interview: “The current confrontation with the Netanyahu government over settlements comes in the context that hopes raised in the Obama Cairo speech have long since evaporated and the United States has no credibility to speak of on this issue. It’s too early to say whether the Administration is in fact serious about pressing for a two-state solution. Let’s not be misled. This is not about the timing of an announcement by the Shas Party component in the Netanyahu Cabinet. It’s not about — at least from an American perspective, as opposed to a perspective of Israeli voters — whether Netanyahu controls his Cabinet effectively. It’s about whether the process of annexing Arab land and colonizing it – in areas that under international law do not belong to Israel and where such activities are expressly forbidden – is going to continue. Ultimately it’s about whether the two-state solution, which is almost impossible to imagine now, becomes completely impossible to imagine because it has become physically impossible to implement. That’s what it’s about.”
