Jennifer and Evelyn, between them, have covered pretty comprehensively the problems with latest settlement-freeze deal. I note, however, that the generally left-leaning Economist picked up on the aspect of the deal that concerns me the most and isn’t getting a lot of attention. Jennifer alludes to it with this passage:
And as for the promise to veto UN resolutions attacking Israel or declaring a Palestinian state, why should Israel have to give anything to Obama for simply adhering to past U.S. policy? My Israel guru remarks, “This shows the Obama mentality that we veto as a difficult favor for Israel, rather than out of principle.”
The Economist is blunter: “Is America bribing Bibi or blackmailing him?” One problem with the Obama administration’s action is that it can so easily be read as blackmail. It’s basic diplomatic competence to avoid creating such implications if they are unintended.
Independent of nations or circumstances, the U.S. posture should, on principle, oppose the peremptory creation of new nations against the will of UN member states. Making this principle conditional, for transient bargaining purposes, is a grave strategic error. A number of our own allies have ethnic-nationalist insurgencies, border disputes, or both – nations like Spain, Greece, Turkey, and Japan. Russia, China, and India have them as well. They are able to deal with their problems as ongoing but relatively minor nuisances largely because the momentum of global expectations is with the principles of national sovereignty and order.
The Obama deal offered to Israel contains too broad a hint that America’s commitment to those principles might be conditional. Perhaps Team Obama sees Israel as a case so special that nothing done in relation to it has meaning for the principles of international relations. But the rest of the world’s nations don’t share that view – nor do their insurgencies or their respective border antagonists. What they see is the trend of actions by the United States. This is a destabilizing move and a very ill-advised one.
