The Gilo plan last week exploded as the top story — “above the fold” with a giant headline — on the front page of Yediot Achronot, Israel’s largest circulation daily. The headline in the
Hebrew print edition read: “U.S.: Don’t Build in Gilo Neighborhood; Astonishment in Israel From a New American Demand.” This is a crisis engineered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A crisis intended to create a head-on collision with the Obama administration over Jerusalem. The Obama administration had no choice but to intervene on this plan.
And while Bibi had a number of “conventional” options for dealing with the issue, he chose to go nuclear by making this issue — and his defiance of U.S. concerns — a top story. In doing so, he has undermined the prospects for the very negotiations he claims he wants.
First, some background is in order, because the plan is being spun in the Israeli press as something simple and non-controversial — construction in one of the oldest Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, one that many Israelis forget is technically a settlement at all.
This is, of course, just spin.
The plan, if implemented, will allow the construction of 844 units, and these units won’t be inside the existing footprint of the settlement. Rather, they will be on the settlement’s southwestern flank, expanding Gilo in the direction of the Palestinian village of Wallajeh (a village in which a large number of the homes are fighting Israeli demolition orders).
This new Gilo plan clearly dovetails with another plan to build a new settlement, called Givat Yael, which would straddle the Jerusalem border and significantly extend Israeli Jerusalem to the south, further sealing the city off from the Bethlehem area and the West Bank (and connecting it to the Etzion settlement bloc). That plan also appears to be suddenly gaining steam.
The Gilo plan is thus extremely provocative on several levels.
It represents a clear and public statement from the Netanyahu government that it is neither “freezing” nor acting with “restraint” in East Jerusalem. It compels the Palestinians to respond, just as it compels other regional actors to respond. Finally, it has important strategic implications, since the plan, if implemented, would impact on border options for Jerusalem under a future peace agreement.
This crisis was by no means inevitable. Few had any idea this Gilo plan was on the agenda. This means that Netanyahu could easily have responded positively to U.S. concerns and quietly quashed or delayed the project, without any political cost.
Alternatively, he could have offered another (deceptively) constructive course, like allowing it to be deposited for public review but promising to find other ways to hold it up later.
Or he could simply have refused to intervene, but kept quiet about it, letting the bureaucratic approval process run it course and only react publicly, after the fact.
Yes, Netanyahu had a number of conventional options, yet he chose to go nuclear.
If this feels familiar, it should. This is basically what happened earlier this year with the Shepherd’s Hotel settlement in Sheikh Jarrah. The plan was on the agenda, Washington weighed in firmly but quietly, hoping for firm but quiet action by Netanyahu. Instead, they got a story leaked to the Israeli media, turning it into an opportunity for Netanyahu to burnish his Jerusalem credentials — at the expense of the prospects for peace.
Or for those who have a longer memory, this might remind them of Har Homa. The United States had strongly and consistently opposed construction of this settlement between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but that didn’t stop Netanyahu from using it twice to “balance” pro-peace moves — first in 1997 after the signing the Hebron Agreement, and again in 1998 immediately after his cabinet endorsed the Wye River Memorandum.
Today Har Homa is home to around 10,000 Israelis and still expanding.
This time around, there is no Hebron Agreement or Wye Memorandum, only Netanyahu going nuclear on the Jerusalem issue, which makes it hard to see how any settlement moratorium — no matter what its details — can credibly be used to promote negotiations.
While the Gilo plan did erupt last week, it implementation is not necessarily inevitable — but it does mean that it now requires the investment of serious political capital to stop.
So what happens next?
It is imperative that Netanyahu be convinced — by Israelis, by Washington, by Jewish voices worldwide, by the international community — to swear off “nuclear” tactics in Jerusalem.
And not only with respect to the Gilo project, but with respect to all of the other projects and plans that are in the drawers of troublemakers in the various ministries and municipal offices — including those under the authority of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who seems almost childishly eager to fan the flames of conflict in the city.
Netanyahu must do so for the sake of Israel’s own best interests.
No genuine Israeli interest is served by any of these projects, unless one perceives the Israeli interest as the prevention of credible negotiations with the Palestinians that could lead to a two-state solution.
The only interest served by these projects is the prevention of the two-state solution and the transformation of the Israeli-Arab conflict from a difficult but resolvable conflict over territory into an irresolvable zero-sum religious war.
Lara Friedman is the director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now. Daniel Seidemann is the founder and legal adviser for Ir Amim, a nonprofit dedicated to an equitable, stable and sustainable Jerusalem.
For a different view on this topic please go to Obama’s reduced guest list leaves some pining for a Bush Chanukah