JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Did Obama misplay settlements issue?

By Ami Eden · November 5, 2009

A variety of voices suggest that the Obama administration botched the Israeli-Palestinian issue by publicly insisting on a full settlement freeze.

• Marty Peretz: "Indeed, the Israeli political system watched in utter (but almost comic) disbelief as the president attempted to get fundamental concessions from Jerusalem while letting the Palestinians off the hook. Which is, as you know, just how they took it. They did nothing. And suddenly the president and secretary Clinton, who had been so frosty with the Israelis and Hillary really frosty, as only she can be, had to change not only their tune but their very line to find some stasis for themselves. You are back where you started. And, by the way, did the Saudis help any?"
• Joe Klein: "Suddenly the Obama Administration seemed wobbly on the Middle East; clearly, Clinton had been too bullish on Netanyahu's proposal (which had been negotiated over months with Middle East envoy George Mitchell and was seen, privately, by the Americans as real progress). But the Administration's mission was to get the parties into peace talks without preconditions. The Israelis were now in favor of talks. The Palestinians were setting preconditions. And Clinton had violated an essential rule of her job: boring is almost always better."
• Glenn Kessler: "The administration's key error, many analysts say, was to insist that Israel immediately freeze all settlement growth in Palestinian-occupied territories. The United States has never accepted the legitimacy of Israeli settlements, but the Obama administration took an unusually tough stance. It refused to acknowledge an unwritten agreement between Israel and Bush to limit growth in settlements, with Clinton leading the charge to demand a full settlement freeze."
• Washington Post: "The administration set the stage last spring for this diplomatic impasse by demanding 'a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth -- any kind of settlement activity,' as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it. No Israeli government has agreed to such terms, and the administration's public insistence on them only served to boost Mr. Netanyahu's approval rating with Israelis, while Mr. Obama's plummeted to the single digits. The administration now wants to set the issue aside and move on with the talks; officials say a settlement freeze was never a precondition. But Ms. Clinton is having trouble clambering out of the hole she helped to dig: Last weekend she praised as 'unprecedented' an Israeli proposal for limiting settlement growth; this week, after Arab protests, she backpedaled. Mr. Abbas has a similar predicament. Having adopted the original U.S. demand as his own, he cannot easily drop it. Arab leaders could provide Mr. Abbas political cover, but neither they nor he seems to share Mr. Obama's notion that the time is ripe for a deal."