UNITED NATIONS – Amid strained relations between the United States and Israel, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued Monday that the Israeli state’s survival depends on whether it can make the “difficult but necessary choices” to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians.
In an eagerly awaited speech before the largest pro-Israel lobby group in America, Ms. Clinton implied Israel faces rising isolation on the world stage if it does not make concessions the United States says are necessary for the Palestinians to eventually get a state of their own.
Ms. Clinton said the administration of President Barack Obama was “rock solid” in its commitment to Israel’s security and future, but outlined a path to a “two-state solution” that many say reflects a tilt toward Palestinian positions compared to the policies of past U.S. administrations.
“As Israel’s friend, it is our responsibility to give credit when it is due, and to tell the truth when it is needed,” Ms. Clinton told delegates at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington.
Ms. Clinton spoke on the eve of a meeting between Mr. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on his way to Washington on Monday to also address the AIPAC conference.
But the get-together between the two leaders involved its own thread of controversy, as the White House late Monday was not releasing a specific time for Mr. Netanyahu to meet the president.
The tactic appeared aimed at putting pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to accept “confidence-building measures” Ms. Clinton outlined when she spoke with him late last week to express indignation over Israel’s announcement it will build 1,600 additional homes for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem.
The declaration came during a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and, although Mr. Netanyahu apologized for its timing, he has refused to halt the construction.
“New construction … exposes daylight between Israel and the United States that others in the region hope to exploit,” Ms. Clinton warned at the AIPAC conference. “When Prime Minister Netanyahu and I spoke, I suggested a number of concrete steps Israel could take to improve the atmosphere and rebuild confidence.” But she signalled the United States and Israel were still not on the same page when she added that Mr. Netanyahu responded with his own “specific actions Israel is prepared to take toward this end.”
In a hint U.S. relations with Israel may become an issue during the November U.S. midterm elections, a senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives told AIPAC that the Obama administration’s pressure on the longtime U.S. ally was misplaced.
“Now is not the time to be picking fights with Israel in what seems to be an attempt to curry favour with the Arab world,” Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, said in his speech.
“Let’s face it. Israel is not the problem. From Yemen to Afghanistan to Pakistan, terrorists are not going to lay down their arms against America if we abandon Israel.”
At a meeting in Amman on Monday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, that indirect talks could get under way only if Israel freezes the East Jerusalem construction, the Palestine News Agency Wafa said.
While Mr. Netanyahu last November ordered a 10-month moratorium on new housing starts in Jewish settlements, he excluded East Jerusalem and surrounding areas in deference to the wider Israeli claim to those areas – captured from Jordan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war – based on biblical and historical links. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state.
Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev, said the Israeli leader would use his AIPAC speech on Monday night to focus on Iran, the peace process and U.S.-Israel relations, and would stress that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and “not a settlement.”
Ms. Clinton also told AIPAC that Mr. Obama has a “special appreciation” for the plight of Israel, in part because he had a “grandfather who fought the Nazis in Patton’s army,” and a “great uncle who helped liberate Buchenwald” – one of the Nazi concentration camps.
But Israeli media note Mr. Obama has yet to visit their country despite having given a speech billed as one of the most important of his presidency in Cairo. In that June address, Mr. Obama called for a “new beginning” in the U.S. relationship with Muslims, and spoke of an independent “Palestine” – which marked a break from standard references to a future Palestinian state.
Still, it remains in Washington’s interest to repair the current rift with Israel, which is its foremost regional ally in the standoff with Iran over that country’s nuclear program.
Ms. Clinton said that Iran’s leaders have, over the last year, been “stripped of their usual excuses.”
Mr. Netanyahu is among the Israeli leaders who agree that the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is the right course, but Ms. Clinton spoke as if this were not the case.
“There is, I think, a belief among many that the status quo can be sustained,” she said in reference to Israeli control of large parts of the West Bank, and its continuing blockade of Gaza, which the anti-Israel terror group Hamas runs.
“But the dynamics of demography, ideology and technology make this impossible.”
Ms. Clinton said the “long-term population trends that result from the Israeli occupation” will one day force Israel to choose between “democracy and staying true to the dream of a Jewish homeland.”
The well-documented higher rate of increase of the Palestinian population is often cited as a reason why the creation of a separate Palestinian state is the only way a Jewish majority can be maintained in Israel.
Ms. Clinton referred to her time in the White House during to presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton, as she argued how Israel is growing increasingly isolated on the world stage.
“During the 1990s, it was rare that people in places far from the Middle East ever mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” she recalled of her travels as first lady.
“Now, when I started travelling as secretary of state and I went to places that were so far from the Middle East, it was the first, second or third issue that countries raised.”
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