In itself, the United Nations resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements passed by the Security Council last Friday is innocuous enough. It was slated under the non-binding chapter six but it has taken on a larger-than-life symbolism for good reasons. It is the first time the United States has not vetoed a resolution specifically dealing with Israeli settlements in 35 years. It caps President Barack Obama’s unhappy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is a parting kick of a dying administration. The Palestinians are, of course, delighted though sad that President Obama did not act similarly at the beginning of his term, rather than towards its end. A spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organisation president Mahmoud Abbas said: “The Security Council resolution is a big blow to Israeli policy, a unanimous international condemnation of settlements and a strong support for the two-state solution.” The resolution was passed 14-0, with US abstention, and France and Britain voting for it.
Israel by contrast was furious, Mr Netanyahu calling it “shameful”, but he took comfort from US President-elect Donald Trump’s immediate tweet: “As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20”, the day he assumes office. In fact, trashing convention, Mr Trump had got Egypt, the main resolution sponsor, to delay putting it forward, but the other four sponsors, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela, went ahead, with Mr Obama giving a nod to his UN ambassador not to veto it. Mr Trump had made amply clear his inclinations by nominating a hardline pro-settlement son of a rabbi, David Friedman, as his ambassador to Israel. The shock and delight the UN resolution has caused in the two opposing camps signifies how seriously the principal actors are taking it. To begin with, it puts the Palestinian cause centrestage just as a new pro-Israeli US administration is preparing to take charge. Second, the French and British support for the resolution implies that much of Europe is fed up with Israeli policies towards Palestinians and might act to deny the occupied territories the benefits it receives in trade concessions. Third, the International Criminal Court at The Hague is already looking at a complaint filed by Palestinians on Israeli policies on, among other things, the settlements, and might decide to conduct a full probe.
Mr Netanyahu has domestic problems to contend with. Thus far he has been sailing along building new settlements even while paying lip service to a two-state solution. Now, presiding as he does over the most right-wing government ever, he will be asked by his more extremist colleagues to up the ante and accelerate settlement building to thumb his nose at the international community. The fiction of a two-state solution, the international mantra, is being sabotaged by deliberate Israeli policy. The fear in Israel and its neighbourhood is that if the new US ambassador, once confirmed, carries out his threat to move his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and the Palestinian street erupts, the Arab street cannot be far behind. Such a storm would set back Mr Netanyahu’s efforts to build discreet relations with Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, who were beginning to see the regional scenario in terms of warding off Shia Iran’s growing influence.
The more hardline policies Mr Netanyahu is forced to adopt, the greater will be the adverse reaction from the Sunni world and Europe. About 600,000 Jews live in about 140 settlements built after the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The change in US policies Mr Trump is threatening to bring about on assuming charge will thus be his first test in the historical tussle between Jews and Palestinians over the holy land that is being gradually swallowed up by a strong Israel militarised and financed by the US in its own interest against the backdrop of the grip Jews have over the American political system. It is one of the factors that prevented Mr Obama from undertaking a successful bid for giving the Palestinians their due. The irony is that the more the future Trump administration tilts towards Israel, the greater will be the danger of a new conflagration in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The venom in Mr Netanyahu’s reaction to the US abstention says it all, accusing the Obama administration of a “disgraceful anti-Israel manoeuvre”.
The US has traditionally employed the largest number of vetoes to save Israel from criticism in the Security Council, although previous Presidents have abstained on some resolutions concerning Israel in the past. On the Palestinian side, Saeb Erekat, the long-time Palestinian negotiator with Israel, has indicated that if the US moved its embassy to Jerusalem, it would prompt the Palestine Liberation Organisation to withdraw recognition of Israel granted as part of the illusory Oslo peace process. Apart from the peace treaties Egypt and Jordan have with Israel, the rest of the Arab world has only clandestine relations with Tel Aviv. The UN resolution says in part that the Israeli settlements have “no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under international law”.
Thanks to the UN resolution and a historic US abstention, the Palestinian cause will now figure as a major barometer of the progress of the Trump era. European nations have already warned the Trump transition team not to tinker with the Iran nuclear deal because some of them are participants in the agreement they consider essential in keeping Tehran’s nuclear ambitions under control. Indeed, the Israeli approach to Palestinians will become a second major cause of friction between the European Union and a Trump-dominated Washington. It remains to be seen if the burden of office will sober Mr Trump’s expansive style of policymaking. He will not have many supporters in Europe or around the world if he goes headlong into the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire without giving a thought for the morrow. The world does not draw much comfort from his boast of finding the ultimate solution for the historical struggle between Jews and Palestinians.
