Middle East Post

Recently the Untied States of America, the European Union, the Arab countries, and the International community considered Israel’s decision to permit 1600 new settlement units in Jerusalem a wrong step that will cause damage for the trust needed in order to re-launch the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Although Vice President John Biden considered the relation between Israel and the United States a special one and made sure that the security of Israeli is important for the United States as its own, he refused the Israeli latest decision to build more settlements In East Jerusalem and considered it not healthy for the peace process.

The Arab countries ambassadors decided to demand from President Abu Mazen not to launch any new kind of negotiations as long as Israel continues to ignore the international community and the Arab invitations for a real peace in the area based on a complete freeze of settlements building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Amr Mousa, the spokesmen of the Arab University stated that Abu Mazen would not launch any new negotiations with Israel as long as settlements are built in the West Banka and East Jerusalem.

The European Union condemned the Israeli latest decision and considered it a bad step that should not have been made while the two sides are trying to build trust relations in order to start negotiations. Inside Israel, many politicians criticized the latest Israeli decision regarding settlements in Jerusalem. Minister Ehud Barak considered the decision wrong and asked for better cooperation and arrangements in the Israeli government.

Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that he did not know about the latest Israeli decision and asked for minding any kind of embarrassing similar decisions while foreign important personalities are visiting Israel.
Although the Israeli government tried to explain its position for Vice President John Biden, this did not succeed in preventing the United States criticism of the latest decision. The Palestinian Authority succeeded in using the Israeli decision in order to bring more support for the Palestinian view that continues to state that Israel does everything it can to prevent any kind of improvement in the peace process.

Diplomatically, the Palestinian authority succeeded in bringing an International condemnation of Israel’s settlement policy in Jerusalem. Although this success may not cause real effect on Israel’s relation with the United States it is still extremely important to achieve this diplomatic success. The result cannot be seen immediately but such achievements leave great effect in the long term inside Israel and in the International community.

The Israeli government seems to be not clear regarding its position from settlements in Jerusalem. From one side, the Israeli leadership stated for its supporters that the building in every part of Jerusalem is exactly as building in Tel Aviv. In other words, the Israeli leadership considered settlements in all of Jerusalem legitimate. From the other side, the Israeli governments fears any International disagreement or crises and therefore do not apply its settlement policy as it promised to. The situation of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is not really good.

The promises that he gave for the rightist political parties in order to gain their support seem to be more than extreme and cannot be accepted internationally. This is exactly the challenge that Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing today. Either he will have to break his promises in order prevent any more diplomatic crises for Israel and make an achievement in peace, or he will have to face serious crises which will affect Israel and its national security.

It is worth saying that the Palestinian authority succeeded this time in employing Israeli political and diplomatic mistakes in order to bring more support for the need of starting a real peace process that is built on true intentions.

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