Will Democrats Finally End Their Support For West Bank Settlements? (Part 2)

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet. Posted June 9, 2009.

The letter cites a number of areas where the senators insist the United States should pressure the Palestinians and other Arab parties to live up to their obligations in the peace process while saying nothing about a freeze on settlements or any other Israeli obligations.

Similarly, in what has been widely interpreted as a call for Obama to refrain from any public expression of concern over the settlements, a majority of House Democrats signed a letter co-sponsored by House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., circulated last month declaring that any such disagreements between the United States and Israel should be worked out "privately."

In an apparent effort to pressure the Obama administration to not enforce Israel's international legal obligations regarding settlements, the letter also insists that such "details" should be negotiated only among the parties themselves, which -- given the gross asymmetry in power between the Palestinians under occupation and their Israeli occupiers -- appears to be a call for Obama to allow Israel to do what it will.

In addition, House Democrats insist that "the parties themselves must negotiate the details of any agreement" and that the United States must "work closely with our democratic ally, who will be taking the greatest risks in any peace agreement," which is essentially an insistence not to pressure Israel on the settlements issue.

Signs of a Shift?

However, a number of members of Congress who have defended Israeli policies in that past, including Jewish Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Bob Filner, D-Calif., refused to sign the House letter.

In addition, some Democrats, despite having signed the letter, informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington last month that they do not support his position on settlements, including such traditionally anti-Palestinian stalwarts as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and senior Democrats Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Rep. Henry Waxman of California.

Similarly, when Netanyahu made his rounds on Capitol Hill after meeting with Obama, only House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., openly defended him on the settlements issue.

House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who have signed previous letters supporting the Israeli right, refused to sign onto the recent letters supporting the right-wing Netanyahu government's position in the negotiations.

Meanwhile, a congressional letter sponsored by Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., Charles Boustany, R-La., and Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., which declares that the Israeli settlements were among the things that "threaten the window of opportunity for the two-state solution" and that "American leadership is essential to achieving meaningful progress," has received scores of signatures from their colleagues.

Although a majority of congressional Democrats still apparently support the expansion of Israeli settlements, there have been an unprecedented number of defections from the once-solid support for the Israeli right.

There could be a number of reasons for this apparent shift: One could simply be the desire to support a Democratic president early in his term on a tough foreign policy issue.

Another could be that they could belatedly be recognizing, as does Obama, that anti-American extremism in the greater Middle East will continue to be stoked as long as there is no Israeli-Palestinian peace, that peace will not be possible without a viable Palestinian state and that such a state cannot exist as long as Israel continues to expand its settlements.

A third reason could be that polls now indicate that a solid majority of Americans support the United States "getting tough" with Israel over the settlements, including over 70 percent of Democratic voters.

Democrats and Settlements

If recent history is any indication, however, Obama may find that one of the biggest challenges in stopping Netanyahu's settlements drive will be those in his own party on Capitol Hill.

In 2001, the Mitchell Commission -- appointed by the outgoing President Bill Clinton -- noted a number of minimal actions by both Israelis and Palestinians to end the violence and restart the peace process. Key among them was a call for a "freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements," emphasizing that, "A cessation of Palestinian-Israeli violence will be particularly hard to sustain unless the government of Israel freezes all settlement activity."

Yet when congressional Democrats have spoken about the report's recommendations, they have consistently failed to mention the settlement freeze and talked only in terms of unilateral Palestinian initiatives.

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Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

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