My new piece at The American Prospect is part II of the explanation of how Netanyahu would like to sell continued settlement growth to Barack Obama. Part I is below. Despite Bibi’s rep as a salesman, Obama isn’t buying, as he made clear today in Cairo.
It’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s fault. Because of his insistence on allowing for “natural growth” of West Bank settlements, I decided to go real-estate shopping. I called Amana, the settlement-building organization, and said I was interested in homes in Binyamin, the name used by settlers and Israeli officialdom for the piece of the West Bank directly north of Jerusalem.
The sales rep was so helpful I could hear her smile. At Shilo, a 30-year-old settlement north of Ramallah, construction has recently begun on a new development. For about $160,000, she said, I could get a 1,200-square-foot-house. To American ears, that sounds small, but for a Jerusalem apartment-dweller, it would be a step up. Besides, that’s a starter home; I could add a second floor now or later, she said.
At Eli, just up the road from Shilo,, she offered homes in the center of the settlement, and in outlying “neighborhoods.” In Hayovel, for instance, she had a house for $115,000, with a completed first floor and the outer shell for the second floor. She didn’t mention that the “neighborhood” of Hayovel is an illegal outpost, built partly on private Palestinian land. She offered me a similar house at a settlement called Ma’aleh Mikhmash. I thanked her, and said I’d talk to my wife.
Ma’aleh Mikhmash happens to be where Knesset Member Otniel Schneller lives. Schneller, a former settlement leader, braved the criticism of the right to join the centrist Kadima party. But at a recent meeting of Kadima’s Knesset delegation, he reportedlyattacked President Obama’s insistence a full freeze on settlement building with no exceptions for “natural growth.”
The U.S. demand was “immoral,” Schneller said. He refused to agree to what he termed “an edict forbidding my daughters to give birth to my grandchildren.” And Schneller belongs to a party that refused to join Netanyahu’s coalition.. Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have been more caustic. Science Minister Daniel Hershkowitz saidthat Obama’s demand was akin to “Pharaoh’s demand that all firstborn sons be thrown into the Nile River.”
To call this nonsense would be too forgiving. It is one part of the multi-layered lie about “natural growth” of settlements.
Read the rest at The American Prospect, and come back to SoJo to comment.
Hi Gershom,
I just watched Obama’s talk in Cairo; clearly he isn’t buying what Bibi’s selling. There was a long article in the NY Times today describing how the Israelis are claiming the Obama administration is going back on “oral” agreements with the Bush Administration on settlement growth – while it’s not clear there was ever closure on such an agreement. But the capper is that Bibi and Ehud Barak don’t have a response when the Americans (as in George Mitchell) counter by saying the Israelis are going back on written commitments, especially the two state solution (which George W. Bush so memorably endorsed). Talk about selective memory…
Your story on real estate shopping reflects, in the simplest and most entertaining way the fraud of “natural growth” argument about the settlements. The real estate agents will sell to whomever will qualify (i.e., is Jewish) and pay. Land is cheap when it’s confiscated and construction is publicly subsidized – oh, and when someone else – namely the US and Israeli publics as a whole – are paying for security.
The key issues are whether Obama will follow his words with action, and how Bibi and the Israeli public in general will react, in the short and long-run. Obama is developing a pretty strong reputation of “no drama Obama” – in this case, stating his goals and working towards them. Israel & Palestine are part of a bigger picture for him.
I liked your metaphor of Obama being like the friend who doesn’t let his friend drive drunk. I’m also reminded of another saying that might be applicable, which is when you’ve dug yourself a hole, the first thing to do in order to get out is to stop digging…
A key on the US side is that Obama is very popular, including among the vast majority of Jews. Most US Jews have little sympathy for the settlements, so there will be little or no pressure from American Jews on Obama to go easy on Israel as long as he makes clear his commitment to real peace. For many – especially young – American Jews, the occupation and the settlements have become an embarrassment, which is why Jewish identity with and support for Israel has been steadily diminishing in ways that no amount of “Birthright” trips will fix. This all seems to be coming as a shock to the Israeli government – clearly they don’t seem to have very good intelligence in this area!
Shabbat Shalom!
Ron says:
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Most US Jews have little sympathy for the settlements, so there will be little or no pressure from American Jews on Obama to go easy on Israel as long as he makes clear his commitment to real peace. For many – especially young – American Jews, the occupation and the settlements have become an embarrassment, which is why Jewish identity with and support for Israel has been steadily diminishing in ways that no amount of “Birthright” trips will fix. This all seems to be coming as a shock to the Israeli government – clearly they don’t seem to have very good intelligence in this area!
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This is merely speculation on your part. Please don’t quote selective public opinion polls of American Jews about this subject, they can give very widely varying results depending on how the question is asked…for example if you ask
(1) are you willing to have Israel dismantle settlements in Judea/Samaria in return for a true peace with the Palestinians? – you will get a very different answer than if you ask
(2) Do Jews have a right to live anywhere in Eretz Israel including Judea/Samaria.
Most American Jews have never seen a settlement, have no idea of how they got there, or that Jews lived continuously in Judea/Samaria for thousands of years. Most also don’t have a clear idea of what the Arabs want or if they really intend to make peace with Israel which would make dismantling the settlements a possibility in the respondent’s mind.
Also the fact that a large majority of American Jews voted for Obama does not mean they are happy with his demand for unilateral concessions from Israel without significant concessions from the Arabs, nor does it mean they think his attempt to claim that “Islam and American values are compatible” and that Islam is just as important in American history as the Jewish contribution to America is acceptable to them.
Netanyahu will have a solid concensus behind him in Israel if he will tell Obama that he will capitulate to his demand to stop construction of the settlements. This is not 1999. I see it repeated on “progressive” blogs and newspapers like Ha’aretz that all Obama has to do is snap his fingers and the Israeli voter will chuck out a Prime Minister that the President doesn’t like.
Bush I’s unhappiness with Shamir in 1992 was not a major factor in Shamir’s narrow loss. In 1996, Clinton said explicitly to Israelis that they had better vote for Peres if they knew what was good for them, but Peres lost. Similarly, the “peace candidate”, Tzippi Livni lost the last election.
I did it again- I meant to say “Netanyahu will have solid consensus if he tells Obama that he will NOT stop settlement construction.”
As YBD’s comment on pt. I makes perfectly clear, the Eretz Israel crowd loves the hole they’ve dug themselves into so much they rather see the rest of the world as unfairly walling them in. Like the drunkard, whose very condition prevents him from realising the state he’s in, they’ve no intention to stop digging. The former might only be stopped by either his own body revolting – throwing up or passing out – or external force. I wouldn’t count too much on the insight of the latter either.
thank you for this interesting article. but i believe most of the natural growth and migration is happening in the major settlement blocs, in maaleh adumim, ariel, gush etzion. these places will be under israeli soveregnity after a deal is made (if it’s ever made).
i can’t wait to read this article The American Prospect is an amazing magazine. I read your other article, Settling for Radicalism and am grateful for your reporting on the settlement movement. your pakistan analysis was appropriate and original. what a disaster.
YBD wrote:
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This is merely speculation on your part. Please don’t quote selective public opinion polls of American Jews about this subject
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Actually, I didn’t quote any opinion poll, but relied on my own conversations and impressions, which included discussions with a young American guy I know who served in the IDF and spent much of his recent service in the West Bank, including guarding settlements – and who came away with a very negative view of them. But, it seems that this venue is a legitimate place for such opinions.
There is no question that Israeli leaders can rally their forces to resist American presidents. But to the extent that Obama focuses on the settlement issue, this time Israel will not be able to rally significant American Jewish support. American Jews don’t see settlements as a security issue – if anything they are a security problem. As to asking Israel to take steps to ease the daily suffering of the Palestinians, it could be less clear because of the “security” issues involved (e.g, concrete to Gaza). But my point is that Obama has much more leeway on this than his predecessors vis-à-vis American Jewish support. I don’t think it is conceivable that you will see something like what happened under Bush I, when a call went out to all rabbis to urge their congregants on Yom Kippur to lobby against the suspension of loan guarantees.
The key is that you err when you write about Obama’s “demand for unilateral concessions.” Obama said in his Cairo speech that both sides will have to deliver concessions or no progress will be made. He demanded that both sides adhere to the roadmap already negotiated – and that included Hamas on the Palestinian side. No magic wand, just a clear vision that is a different “narrative” that happens to include the demand that both sides engage with the other.
We are all settlers, whether we live in Tel Aviv or Ariel. When will Israel resettle the 10,000 Jews expelled from Gaza? In 1949, Israel could absorb hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries. In 2009, a richer Israel cant absorb 10,000 Jews from Gush Qatif
What I take from the Cairo speech and Obama’s overall initiatives is the realization that we will get much farther building bridges to Muslim friends than we will bombarding terrorist enemies.
No one is fooled by “natural growth”, except those who choose to fool themselves. We know what it means, and if the local zoning laws prohibit me from turning my single story residence into a mansion it is not the beginning of 1984 totalitarianism nor an edict to throw my first born into the Nile. Reductio ad absurdum is supposed to be a debating tactic applied to the other side’s arguments look absurd, not your own!
According to your good friend Helena Cobban, by living in South Jerusalem (Baqa, etc) you are living in old Arab homes. The names Gorenberg and Waitzmann dont sound Palestinian to me, they sound Germanic. Perhaps you should pack up as well to provide an antidote for “natural growth”. Isnt it a bit rich to lecture to Jews in Binyamina when you too occupy Arab housing?
Nimrod- yes, they are a festering sore.
Nimrod –
It seems to me that the settler’s from Gush Katif don’t want to be “absorbed.” In this sense, they have become the mirror image of the Palestinians in their refugee camps with a similar political motivation: they want the “sore” to fester. Another ironic example, not to the good, of Israel becoming “integrated” into the Middle East…
a) “At Shilo, a 30-year-old settlement north of Ramallah, construction has recently begun on a new development…”
Founded in late January (Rosh Chodesh Shvat) 1978, Shiloh is 31+. The new development of 10 homes is basically up although, as usual, there all sorts of ‘little’ things to be finished. I don’t have exact figures but up to 30 new families over the past 2-3 years, with many children returning. We even discovered a new and third Byzantine-era basilica.
b) “The “natural growth” argument is intended to cover up the continued, state-backed effort to encourage this migration.”
Ah, Gershom, being a “now” Zionist, post or not, doesn’t grasp that returning to the Land of Israel, developing it, causing it to provide physical, agricultural, cultural and religious advantages for Jews, is what is the essence of “natural growth”. It is the most natural thing to do, if you are a Jew and a Zionist. If Gershom ever gets the itch, he can even go to the Negev where all he and his leftwing friends love to send other Jews to illustrate just how wrong-directional I and my friends are in going to Judea and Samaria.
c) Haim & Gershom, can you put in place a widget or whatever they call it, to alert us when comments are left? It would help us create a better dialgoue.
Ron
can you provide any evidence that the settlers dont want to be absorbed? I can provide plenty of evidence that the government did not fulfill their promises to the Gush Qatif residents. If you want Jews to move out of Shiloh or Maale Adumim, Israel has to show it can truly resettle refugees
Nimrod,
I can’t really show proof one way or the other about the desire of the displaced settlers to be absorbed within the green line vs. the government following-up or not. I suspect, as with many things, there are many factors at work here.
But my larger point is that this mirrors the status of the Palestinian refugees: either they don’t want to be resettled (holding onto keys of long gone homes) or no one will help them resettle/integrate, which keeps them as refugees (like the Arab governments). So, it wouldn’t surprise me that the Israeli government – remember, it was Sharon who withdrew from Gaza, but never wanted to withdraw from Yehudah/Shomron – would use these people as pawns, “showing” how impossible it is to resettle them. You are precisely right, that in the 1950’s Israel could resettle hundreds of thousands of olim, and now with fantastically greater wealth and resources, it seems nothing seems to be done – it’s a matter of will and policy on the part of the government, and the will of the (re)settlers.
Ron
there is no evidence of the Gush Katif settlers holding keys to their destroyed houses or refusing resettlement. The Olmert government would have happily given up East Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and anything else it could to stop the prosecutions for corruption. It would have been in Olmerts best interest to successfully resettle the refugees in order to better conduct his garage sale of Jerusalem. The reason that Olmert was not successful in resettling the refugees was his utter contempt for them-the same utter contempt he has for Gilad Shalit, who could have been rescued a la Entebbe, but today, there would be nasty headlines about it