Whatever the reason behind the move, the result is the same: the US is providing support for the most radical factions of Israel’s right and making the already-monumental task of negotiating a peace agreement even harder.
On Monday afternoon, Pompeo essentially took Israel’s side, announcing a formal repudiation of the Hansell Memorandum. He billed this as both the result of a review of the law and an important step towards a peace agreement.
“Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace,” he said. “The hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace.”
This argument is exceedingly strange. No one seriously believes in a “judicial resolution” to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, that the simple act of declaring the settlements “illegal” would magically get rid of them and bring peace. Rather, the argument is that the settlements are major barriers to peace — a fact which every US administration has recognized at one point or another — and that the US ought to put diplomatic pressure on Israel to limit their growth.
If you spend significant time in the West Bank, it’s easy to understand the reasoning here. The security bubble Israel maintains around settlements cuts off Palestinian communities from each other and makes a meaningful, economically viable existence for some of them impossible. The very existence of settlements creates an Israeli constituency that opposes any peace deal that involves creating a viable Palestinian state, as this would require the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of settlers from their homes.
Pompeo’s substantive arguments are not serious. It’s better to understand this is part of a broader set of diplomatic policies, ranging from the administration’s pick of a hardline anti-Palestinian ideologue as ambassador to its decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, that seem designed to boost Netanyahu’s political fortunes and encourage the expansion of the settlement project with a wink and a nudge. It’s an approach that indulges Israel’s worst instincts, pushing it to cement the worst elements of the occupation and undermine its long-term prospects for survival
