Last week, as tensions boiled over into full-blown accusations of racism and constructive debate between supporters and critics of Apartheid Week, Israel’s long, meticulous process of coalition-building continued unabated. The results of last month’s election are still, in a way, undecided. For those unfamiliar with the workings of Israeli politics, seats in the Knesset are granted proportionally. Since religious and special interest parties fragment the vote, a coalition is almost always necessary to form a government. For this reason, each election is followed by an arduous process of alliance-making, negotiation, and careful press manipulation by each party, in an effort to secure any advantage toward forming the next government. On February 20, Israeli President Shimon Peres gave Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu the task of putting together a ruling coalition.
Though this new coalition’s character remains to be seen, the success of Israel’s right wing and religious parties may render the already ineffective peace process completely impotent. Incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been duplicitous when discussing his plans to deal with the Palestinians. While he claims to be a proponent of a two-state solution, he walks a tightrope, with potential coalition partners from religious parties like the National Union and Habayit Hayehudi, both of which vehemently oppose the creation of any Palestinian state. His own party’s charter officially states that “the Jewish communities in Judea [The West Bank] and Samaria [the Gaza Strip] are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defence of the vital interests of the State of Israel.”
During last week’s visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Netanyahu insisted “there is broad agreement inside Israel and outside that the Palestinians should have the ability to govern their lives but not to threaten ours.” However, he also suggested that any future Palestinian state should be subject to Israeli control of its airspace, electromagnetic spectrum, and border crossings, and that it could have no standing army or external military alliances. Coalition talks between Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have been hampered by disagreements. The last round of meetings reportedly collapsed after the Likud leader distanced himself from a two-state solution: “a final agreement will see the Palestinians having the full authority to run their lives, but do you want them to have control of the air space, their own army, the right for them to make alliances with other states like Iran, or control over borders that would allow for weapons imports? I won’t stand for it.”
By seeking to deny the Palestinians four of the most fundamental rights of any sovereign state, Netanyahu may sabotage the already ineffective peace process before it resumes. If the United States wants to be firm on the creation of a Palestinian state, they could face intense opposition from the Netanyahu coalition, particularly its religious parties. And it will have to be more than marginally critical of Israel’s ongoing colonization of the West Bank. During her visit, Clinton called the continued building of settlements in the West Bank “unhelpful,” but stopped short of applying any substantive pressure on either the incoming or outgoing Israeli government.
In February, Israeli NGO Peace Now reported that “the Housing Ministry is planning a mass expansion in the West Bank with the creation of 73,300 new housing units, including many beyond the Security Fence.” If this plan were to receive government approval, it would amount to a 100 per cent increase in the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The official position of most American administrations is that such settlement is illegal. However, it has been ongoing, and may be exacerbated by the rise of the right-wing bloc.
If the Obama government wants to actively pursue a two-state solution, it must break with previous American administrations and act swiftly to prevent any further Israeli expansion in the West Bank. The United States provides Israel with roughly three billion dollars in economic assistance annually—one fifth of its total foreign aide budget—and it provides exclusive diplomatic support, having vetoed thirty-two UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel since 1982, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all other members of the Security Council combined. If the new Likud-led government continues to allow expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the United States will have to apply more substantive measures towards preserving any kind of two-state solution.
