obama and israel

lHow hard will Obama press Israel on settlements?

By CLIFF CHURGIN
McClatchy Newspapers
JERUSALEM -- The unresolved dispute between the United States and Israel over Israel's refusal to halt building Jewish homes in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank has created a pivotal dilemma for President Barack Obama: How hard should he push one of America's most important allies in the Middle East?

So far, Obama has limited his pressure to calculated public comments, calling Israeli settlement construction illegitimate and a roadblock to a lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians that would include a Palestinian state.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to meet Obama aides Tuesday in the U.S. in the latest bid to find a compromise.

In the face of American demands that Israel halt all settlement building in line with the 2003 "road map" for Middle East peace, Israeli leaders are floating the idea of accepting a three- to six-month freeze on new construction in all settlements.

However, they would continue to build thousands of West Bank homes that already are under construction. On Monday, Israel unveiled plans to build 50 new homes at a West Bank settlement to house settlers relocated from a West Bank outpost called Migron.

The State Department on Monday wouldn't rule out a compromise but reiterated the U.S. view of Israel's obligations. "A freeze on all activity relating to settlements, including natural growth, is what it says in the road map," spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Obama's dilemma is further complicated by Arab nations' insistence on a more-than-cosmetic settlement freeze before they make confidence-building gestures toward Israel that might help restart peace talks.

If a deal can't be worked out, analysts say, Obama has several ways to ratchet up pressure on Israel.

Short of freezing loan guarantees for Israel, the United States could try to enlist broader American Jewish support for halting settlement building or embrace European efforts to penalize Israeli exports made in West Bank settlements.

The United States for many years has imposed formal financial penalties on Israel for its settlement construction. The penalties have had little practical effect, but the process does give Obama a precedent for imposing economic sanctions.

"They can make the whole settlement project expensive in terms of embarrassment and money," said Roni Bart, a research fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies.

Most discussions of American pressure focus on freezing U.S. loan guarantees, an issue that President George H.W. Bush first raised in 1991.

After the Persian Gulf War, hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked Bush for $10 billion in loan guarantees to help the country absorb an expected wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The Bush administration balked, insisting that Israel freeze settlement building.

That friction, Bart said, contributed to Shamir's downfall. This should serve as a cautionary tale for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who so far has rebuffed American pressure to freeze settlements.

"The sense that Obama is not a friendly president is not good for an Israeli prime minister," said Gershom Gorenberg, author of "The Accidental Empire," a book on the birth of Israel's settlement movement. "It's not a secret how dependent Israel is on the U.S."

However, the struggle also cost the first President Bush substantial political capital and brought strident criticism from Israel's supporters on Capitol Hill. Some Republicans think that the issue helped cost him re-election in 1992.