No New Settlement Activity. Period.

Yesterday I posted the video of Secretary Clinton’s joint remarks and Q&A session with the Egyptian Foreign Minister and I peruse the news today, it would appear that her comments made a bit of a splash among foreign policy wonks, particularly with respect to her very clear statement about what the administration expects are Israel’s obligations regarding settlement expansion in the West Bank. Specifically, she said this:

With respect to settlements, the President was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interests of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly, not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others. And we intend to press that point.[emphasis added]

I really don’t think it could be any more clear, do you? And quite frankly at this point, this was a message that needed to be sent to the Israeli government as they continue to do what, even after meeting with President Obama recently? Continue to expand settlements under the rubric of “natural growth.” So, now they know that won’t fly and that this administration means what it says and says what it means.

UPDATE: Israel’s PM Netanyahu responds to US demands by saying, essentially, “natural growth” expansion will continue. The problem with this, of course, is Israel never stopped building the illegal settlements after accepting the terms of the US-led ‘roadmap’ and despite Israel’s highest court proclaiming the continued expansion illegal under Israeli and international law (although some still argue they are in fact legal, they use questionable legal arguments to make that case). I think that Israel’s selective acknowledgment of those laws, while simultaneously demanding the Palestinians to abide by them, will be extremely problematic for the US moving forward.

UPDATE II:  The Israel Policy Forum (IPF) is throwing it’s support behind Secretary Clinton’s strong statements yesterday urging Israel stop all new settlement activity- this is important because the mainstream media tends to focus on more right-wing pro-Israel groups like AIPAC, which tow a very hard line when it comes to making concessions for Mid-East peace. Granted, IPF doesn’t have as much clout in the Beltway as AIPAC but they do represent a different viewpoint that deserves to be aired.

UPDATE III Only one day after the President’s meeting with Palestinian PM, Mahmoud Abbas, the House of Representatives is already pushing back, eager to prove their right-leaning pro-Israel bona fides, as if that wasn’t already clear for all to see. Some of the more hawkish elements of Congress, when dealing with the Mid-East peace process, see any request for Israel to do anything as being “anti-Israel”, which is nonsense of course. As I said above, the continued expansion of settlement activity in the West Bank is a violation of not only international law, but of Israeli law.

UPDATE IV:Helena Cobban looks into what, exactly, the strangely silent Special Envoy, George Mitchell, has been up to these days and she opines that if this NYT article is correct, the peace process is in trouble. But then again, the NYT tends to have accuracy problems at times.

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