Israeli: Obama 'wasn't empathetic to our needs'
Monday, May 25, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
JERUSALEM Ñ Israel is bracing for what officials called a confrontational U.S. policy.
"From the banks of the Potomac in Washington it is not always clear what the real situation here is," Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon said. "This is where Israel must step in and help her ally understand the situation."
Officials said the May 18 meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not lead to any agreements or understandings regarding either the West Bank or Iran. They said Obama, encouraged by his Jewish advisers, stressed that the U.S. aim to establish a Palestinian state would determine Washington's relations with the Jewish state.
"Obama listened and even smiled, but you could see he wasn't empathetic to our needs," an official said.
Officials said the Netanyahu government has been bracing for heightened tension with the Obama administration. They said the White House was leading a pressure campaign on the Jewish state to withdraw from parts of the West Bank in wake of Obama's scheduled address to the Muslim world on June 4.
Since then, officials said, Israel has been pressed by leaders of both the Democratic-controlled House and Senate to take measures against the 300,000-member Jewish community in the West Bank. The congressional leaders have warned the Netanyahu government that the United States was becoming impatient with Israel's policy of sustaining Jewish residential areas in the West Bank.
Ya'alon said the Netanyahu government has pledged to dismantle Jewish communities deemed unauthorized. But the minister, a former chief of staff, pledged that Israel would not agree to a freeze on Jewish construction in the West Bank.
"We will not halt the construction in the settlements within the framework of natural growth," Ya'alon told a television interview on May 23. "There are people here who are living their lives, raising children. Housing is required. It wasn't housing that has prevented peace."
Officials said Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have agreed to dismantle at least 26 unauthorized Jewish communities in the West Bank. They said the military and police launched the campaign in late May with the demolition of the tiny community of Maoz Esher in the northern West Bank.
Other ministers have argued against the demolition of unauthorized Jewish communities while ignoring what they termed illegal Arab construction. An Israeli military report said authorities have not moved against unlicensed Arab construction in the West Bank for at least 18 months.
"[Jewish] outposts do not have to be dismantled now," Interior Minister Eli Yishai said. "There is rampant illegal construction by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. If we go for enforcement, then enforcement has to be unified, just and equitable."
Officials said Netanyahu has argued that Israel already agreed to limit Jewish construction in the West Bank in negotiations with the previous administration of President George Bush. In 2005, they said, the two sides agreed to an understanding in which Israel would continue to construct housing in eastern and northern Jerusalem as well as in Jewish communities organized in blocs in the West Bank.
"We do not intend to build any new settlements, but it wouldn't be fair to ban construction to meet the needs of natural growth or for there to be an outright construction ban," Netanyahu said during a Cabinet meeting on May 24.
For his part, Barak has rejected the U.S. demand for a halt to all Jewish construction in the West Bank. The defense minister said the government would permit what he termed "natural growth" in Jewish communities.
"There cannot be a situation whereby a father of two who bought a 54-square-meter apartment and then decides to enlarge his family would be forbidden from adding two rooms because of an order by the United States," Barak said. "This makes no sense."
Still, Ya'alon did not rule out harsh American pressure during the next visit by U.S. envoy George Mitchell. Mitchell was expected to arrive in Israel soon after Obama's address to the Muslim world, issued in Cairo, Egypt.
"We'll see whether their [U.S.] declarations become actual demands," Ya'alon said. "We won't let them threaten us."