Obama ‘blundered’ with settlement call

AHEAD of his trip to Australia this month, former Ha’aretz editor David Landau reflected on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a phone interview with The AJN on Sunday, identifying mistakes that derailed the peace process and offering suggestions for getting them back on track again.

Citing revelations in former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s new memoir No Higher Honour recently corroborated by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Landau said that Israel and the Palestinians were on the brink of signing an agreement in 2008.

However, hesitation by the Palestinians, followed by the collapse of the Kadima government and subsequent mistakes by the Obama administration after the election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made the chances for peace more remote.

According to Landau, the Obama administration made a tragic blunder demanding a blanket settlement freeze in 2009, but now Israeli and Palestinian leaders share the blame for the impasse preventing a return to direct negotiations.

“I think that it’s been a disaster perpetrated by President Obama as soon as he came to power, to focus and to condition the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on settlement building including in places which are not settlements, like Gilo, or not disputed, like Gush Etzion.”

These areas in and around Jerusalem, Landau said, had already been part of negotiations over land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinians, he said, had been prepared to cede these Jewish communities for other land elsewhere in Israel.

“To call for a freeze on that was diplomatically inept. And it’s proved to be an obstacle to continuing the peace process.”

Landau said the way back to negotiations was to pressure both sides to agree to resume negotiations where they left off in 2008.

“If you say to me, why can’t they get the negotiation back on track. I’ll say, because on our side, the Israeli side, the prime minister is not prepared to go back to the moment when it broke off,” Landau said.

“Mahmoud Abbas, who didn’t have the leadership and the historical awareness to seize that opportunity then … needs to say publicly, this is what was on the table. I want to carry on from that point … And forget about a settlement freeze, because a settlement freeze will be resolved once we resolve the question of the borders,” he added.

Landau’s visit, which includes speaking engagements in Sydney and Melbourne, has been sponsored by the New Israel Fund Australia.

AHRON SHAPIRO

David Landau (pictured) is speaking at:

7:15pm on Thursday, November 17 at Newtown Shul
7:30pm on Sunday, November 20 at Emanuel Synagogue
7.45pm on Wednesday, November 23, at Caulfield Pavilion.

For info and tickets, visit www.nif.org.au.

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