White House "regrets" Israeli settlement construction reports

This is, unfortunately, a typical example of how Americans in the post-Cold War period, unused to thinking in terms of their own country's national interest outside the context of an existential threat, fall into the habit of adopting other people's causes as their own.

The relevant cause here is the Israeli interest in maintaining domestic political equillibrium. This requires maintaining the position that Israeli settlements on the West Bank -- the proponents of which just happen to be the most zealous and unreasonable factions in Israeli politics -- are "not the real issue" and therefore need not be dealt with. This position requires in turn maintaining the belief that no Arab government or Palestinian faction means what it says about how continually expanding settlements call into question Israeli good faith in being willing to negotiate a settlement based on a two-state solution. The identification of the United States with settlements in most predominantly Muslim countries must also be dismissed, because the American government does not fund settlement expansion directly (though some individual Americans unhelpfully do, and the very large annual grants of American aid to Israel are, ultimately, fungible). Finally, there are always other things, said to be "the real issue," that must be dealt with first: Iran is the real issue, Palestinian political strife is the real issue -- and, finally, President Obama is the real problem, a diagnosis particularly appealing to Americans who wish the Democratic Party had nominated someone else for President last year.

Obama is in the unfortunate position of following an American President as solicitous of Israeli political needs as any Israeli politician. It would have been unthinkable to George Bush to disagree in any substantive way with whatever Israeli government policy toward the Palestinians happened to be. Obama was therefore likely to be perceived as less sympathetic by Israelis no matter what he did, and as I've noted upthread his taking a forthright stand against settlement expansion did represent a major change in American policy.

My point, once again, was that it did not represent part of a strategy that took into account how difficult it would be to get Netanyahu's government to address directly an issue that it must avoid to be sure of staying in office. This does not mean that Netanyahu's political problems are American problems, merely that ignoring their major elements -- particularly the difficulties presented by the most zealous pro-settlement factions in Israeli politics -- ensures that we'll be stuck in the mud on this issue. Obama's administration is setting itself up to be portrayed as quarreling with Israel, as opposed to asserting American interests against positions that a particularly unreasonable minority in the Israeli Knesset is forcing the Israeli government to take.

It is, of course, possible that more dramatic steps were always going to be needed to bring into focus the prospect of an American rupture with Israel. To prevent such a rupture, even Netanyahu would be willing to challenge the veto of the pro-settlement factions in Israeli politics, but it may be that more than Presidential statements are required to persuade Israelis that there is a real danger here. I'd prefer to avoid having to go this far, and I'm sure Obama would as well. But he cannot be what Bush was, reflexively supportive of every Israeli word and deed, and he cannot allow his administration to look impotent. Right now, I'm afraid, it does.