Many analysts claim that the Palestinians are not acting in good faith when it comes to the 'peace process.' But are the Europeans and Americans acting in good faith, or have they decided on a pre-ordained outcome that they plan to force on Israel?
Barry Rubin reminds us of very recent history to show how the Europeans and Americans have repeatedly reneged on their promises.
Will the Europeans give unilateral recognition to a Palestinian state without any commitments at all to Israel? There are conflicting voices in Britain, France, and elsewhere about what these states intend. The fact that such recognition conflicts with every commitment they have made to Israel for twenty years doesn’t seem to figure in their debates.
Next, the Americans. It seems likely there will be a U.S. plan for resolving the conflict based on the 1967 borders.
What is the problem with that?
Ah, yes, the second to last president of the United States agreed that Israel would get to negotiate its own borders with the Palestinians. Later, that same president proposed minor border changes involving about three percent of the West Bank but allowing Israel to protect its security and keep a large portion of settlers where they were without taking property belonging to individual Palestinian Arabs. In exchange for these promises, Israel made concessions and took risks.
The last president before this one promised–in exchange for more Israeli risks and concessions–that the United States would support the incorporation of “settlement blocs” along the lines mentioned above–into Israel.
In the autumn of 2009, the Obama Administration promised Israel, in exchange for the settlement freeze and other steps, to accept the settlement bloc idea.
Now the Obama Administration proposes to abrogate all of these promises, raising the question of why should Israel believe any of its future promises.
Another aspect of the Obama plan is likely to be security guarantees for Israel. But, as Barry Rubin points out, there is a problem with these as well.
Who is going to be making these guarantees? The United States and Europe? The United Nations? Yet the first have repeatedly broken promises to Israel and the second is going to remain passionately and unfairly anti-Israel no matter what concessions Israel makes and after a Palestinian state is created.
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