For years, the West has warned Israel against continuing to settle the West Bank and urged that it leave the door open to a political resolution with the Palestinians. But the last four years of the most radical government in Israel’s history have been devoted to just the opposite: permanently shutting that door.
We’ve seen record levels of settlement expansion, of new illegal outposts, and of escalating violence against – and displacement of – Palestinians.
None of these actions enhance Israel’s security; in fact, they do the opposite. They undermine it. They increase conflict, harm Israel’s international standing and steadily close off the possibility of a political solution to an existential conflict.
For years, American and European leaders have warned Israel: Don’t go there. Don’t foreclose the possibility of Palestinian statehood.
Yet that is the path this government has chosen.
So it should surprise no one that earlier this month British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband finally announced meaningful measures that implement those warnings, all aimed at curbing settlement expansion in the West Bank. The British actions include banning imports of goods produced in settlements and sanctioning individuals and companies involved in settlement construction, infrastructure, financing and real estate.
In the U.S., Senator Chris Coons and 18 colleagues this week introduced legislation targeting people and companies involved in developing E1, a major settlement project east of Jerusalem.
Miliband is a proud British Jew whose parents came to Britain as Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. He has spoken about his family’s experience of the Holocaust and his gratitude for Israel as a refuge for his grandmother.
Coons is a senior Democrat who has long been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the Senate and a champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Prominent pro-Israel voices wasted no time framing the Miliband and Coons proposals as a new form of warfare against Israel. Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy has called it a “financial and economic war.” Former Jerusalem Post editor Yaakov Katz wrote that the moves make clear that Israel is fighting a “new war on the financial front.”
For decades, American administrations of both parties and much of the international community have warned Israel against building in E1. Developing that settlement would put thousands of housing units and tens of thousands of settlers in an area east of Jerusalem that would sever the north from the south of the West Bank and further undermine the possibility of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.
The idea behind the Senate’s threatened sanctions is to give Israeli and international firms pause before getting involved in the site’s development.
You can either stop developing settlements, take serious action against settler terror, stop seizing Palestinian land and step back from annexation – or face the consequences.
You can keep building settlements, foreclosing the possibility of a viable independent Palestinian state and ruling over millions of Palestinians without rights – but we are going to cut you off.
U.S. Senators, the U.K. and other countries are putting the ball squarely where it belongs – in Israel’s court. And these recent actions are only the beginning of what is likely to be a building wave of sanctions and penalties imposed on those who are expanding the settlements and profiting off them.
The problem Israel has isn’t the sanctions – or the politicians proposing them.The problem is the never-ending occupation and the government’s rush toward annexation.
It’s Israel’s choice: change course or accept the consequences of the course you’ve chosen.
The response from Israel’s defenders as the world begins to take long overdue action should not be to go onto a war footing against those proposing – and ultimately imposing – these sanctions.
Instead, their energy would be better focused on getting Israel to change course on E1, stop settlement expansion, arrest settler terrorists and preserve the possibility of a future in which Israelis and Palestinians can both live with security, freedom and self-determination.
Israel needs more friends like Ed Miliband and Chris Coons. Real friends don’t let their friends drive drunk. And what this and prior Israeli governments have done on the West Bank is irresponsible and ultimately self-defeating.
If Israel is going to face the consequences of its actions, the problem isn’t in London or in Washington.
There’s only one place where responsibility rests – and that is in Jerusalem.
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