Only three weeks after the fragile Middle East peace talks kicked off, they could easily run aground over the thorny issue of Israeli settlement construction. And it is little surprise that, in this struggle for territory, there is little common ground among the advocates and detractors of Israel's settlement project in the West Bank. The settlements are either a violation of the Palestinian right to a sovereign state and an increasingly daunting obstacle to a lasting peace, or the natural expansion of the Jewish community into their ancient homeland of Judea and Samaria.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's partial moratorium on settlement construction is set to expire on Sept. 26. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded an extension of the freeze -- a position supported by President Barack Obama's administration. Netanyahu, however, has remained adamant that construction will resume when the moratorium ends.
What has caused the Israeli prime minister to risk the ire of his powerful American ally? In part, it is the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of Jewish settlements in the West Bank that presses the communities' case with Israeli leaders. More than one-third of the Israeli Knesset is a member of the Land of Israel caucus, which supports the settlement enterprise. The movement is led by Daniel Dayan - the organization's first secular leader and a resident of the Maale Shomron settlement in the northern West Bank, which is the home to approximately 600 people.
Foreign Policy spoke with Dayan by phone about what he expects to happen after the settlement freeze expires, how his organization can put pressure on Netanyahu, and why he considers Obama "the most hostile president toward Israel that I can remember."
Foreign Policy: What do you believe will happen when the moratorium on settlement construction expires? What are your plans?
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Daniel Dayan: You have to understand that the expiration of the moratorium is a precondition for the ability to build, but it is not a sufficient condition. In order to build at full pace we need the government to publish tenders for construction, mainly in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], and these are questions we have to deal with.
Not extending the moratorium but not publishing new tenders for construction will mean a de facto prolongation of the moratorium. In the cabinet decision of November 2009 [that imposed the freeze] there were two parts: The first part was the moratorium itself, the ten-month freeze. The second part was a clause that said, at the end of the moratorium construction will be renewed as it was in the former government. We expect the government to stand by this commitment as meticulously as it enforced the first part of the resolution.
Otherwise, of course, we will exert our political leverage in the Israeli political system to make sure that the expiration of the moratorium is not just de facto but that it means proper construction.
FP: Obama has engaged in a very public outreach to Jewish leaders in the United States as these negotiations got off the ground. Have you seen any shift in his tone in the past months?
DD: I would say that we have seen a more polite attitude toward Prime Minister Netanyahu. We still remember the shameless, ugly picture the White House released a year ago with President Obama speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu by phone with his feet on the table. I still remember the ugly treatment Prime Minister Netanyahu, as a representative of the people of Israel, got during several of his previous visits to Washington.
Unfortunately, I think that President Obama is the most hostile president toward Israel that I can remember. You have to understand that [Obama's rhetoric] has political significance. I think that the fact that President Obama, with his cold attitude toward Israel, raised expectations on the Palestinian side so high that it will create frustration when those expectations are not fulfilled. And you know, unfortunately, frustration in the Middle East usually leads to violence.
You know who is the American president that caused the most damage in the Middle East? It was Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton took office in January 1993, when the Middle East was relatively calm, by Middle Eastern standards. And he stepped down from office in January 2001, when the Middle East was in a completely chaotic and violent situation.
I think it is not a coincidence that happened during President Clinton's administration, because he was the president that advocated most actively and most aggressively [for] the establishment of a Palestinian state. He raised expectations that he could not fulfill, because the demands of the Palestinians are unfulfillable.
I pray that President Obama does not break President Clinton's record in worsening the situation in the Middle East. But I fear that he will.
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