Israel’s declared intention to build settlement housing in the E-1 area could destroy the possibility of the two-state solution. There are two possible US responses. The first would be akin to President George H. W. Bush’s consistent and tough settlements policy. The other would resemble President Bill Clinton’s incoherent and soft settlement approach.
The history surrounding these two presidents and their Mideast policies offers insight into the bold but high-risk maneuver of Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In the early 1990s, soon after the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference, President Bush warned Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories would hamper negotiations on the future of those territories.
Bush told Shamir that if he wanted $10 billion in loan guarantees, he would have to freeze the settlements project. Shamir rejected the American ultimatum and asked America’s pro-Israel lobby to mobilize Congress against the administration. Bush knew he needed Jewish support in his forthcoming reelection campaign, but he refused to bend on a position he considered in America’s national interest.
The planned construction in the E-1 area (‘Mevaseret Adumim’) is a repetition of the Har Homa project. Both were designed to create a continuity of Jewish land between Jerusalem and the West Bank. Both jeopardize the possibility of a two-state solution. The decision to build three thousand units in area E-1 is described as a ‘punishment’ for the UN General Assembly’s vote to upgrade Palestine to non-member observer state status.
The E-1 construction and additional projects declared by the Israeli government as punitive measures punish Israelis along with Palestinians by striking a blow against prospects for a two-state solution and hence prospects for peace. They also challenge the Obama administration, which considers the settlements to be an impediment to the two-state solution — and which considers the two-state solution to be an American vital interest as well as an Israeli one.