One day after the U.N. General Assembly voted last week to elevate Palestine to observer-state status, Israel advanced plans to build 3,000 new homes on contested land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. “These activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling on Israel to shelve its plans. Israel’s announcement was seen as retaliation for the U.N.’s overwhelming endorsement of Palestine. The U.S. was one of only nine countries to stand with Israel, and Clinton said the administration would continue to “have Israel’s back.”
That uncritical stance “confirms America’s irrelevance” to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict, said Henry Siegman in ForeignPolicy.com. It dooms President Obama’s efforts to renew peace talks as an “empty and purposeless exercise.” Unless the U.S. demands that Israel accept its pre-1967 borders as a starting point, negotiations have “no prospect of producing anything other than cover for Israel’s continuing predatory colonial behavior.”
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