During a recent visit to Israel and the West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli interlocutors told me that not only is the search for peace at a standstill, but also that the United States effectively has taken itself out of the equation as a possible mediator in the conflict. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement Monday that the Trump administration no longer believes Israeli settlements in the occupied territories contravene international law is a further indication of how far this administration has gone to distance itself from — and perhaps kill — the peace process.
To say Pompeo’s reasoning was odd is an understatement. He argued that the United States was merely recognizing the reality on the ground. This argument amounts to ignoring something that is illegal and wrong simply because it is “reality on the ground,” which thus should not affect U.S. policy.
Pompeo’s logic collapses under the weight of evidence supplied by the Israeli government itself. Ten years ago, retired General Baruch Spiegel finally revealed data he had collected when tasked by the Israeli government to negotiate limits on settlement activity with the United States. In 2004-2005 I was his interlocutor while serving as the U.S. ambassador to Israel. At the time, Spiegel allowed the exercise to peter out, alleging that he was having trouble assembling the data. Only later did Spiegel reveal to me the real reason why he could not present the data: It would have been embarrassing to the Israeli government in 2004 to admit that settlement activity — widely considered illegal under international law — was being conducted illegally under Israeli law. Most damning was the fact that so many settlements, including some of the most prominent, were built on private Palestinian land, despite assertions to the contrary by some Israeli officials.
According to a Jan. 1, 2009, report in Haaretz newspaper: “[I]n the vast majority of the settlements — about 75% — construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.”
This is the “reality on the ground” that Pompeo seems to think is just fine. In this “reality,” since 1967 successive Israeli governments have ignored or actively flouted international law and its own domestic law to satisfy the demands of a small but extremely active minority that seeks to make it impossible to achieve a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
While Pompeo considered this in his remarks, he nonetheless reached an Orwellian conclusion: Changing U.S. policy to accept the settlements would “increase the likelihood” of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Pompeo offers no reasonable evidence to support this assertion, and any understanding of the situation clearly points in the opposite direction.
Through the past 50 years, U.S. administrations have adopted different approaches to the settlements problem, but none until now has challenged the State Department Legal Advisor’s opinion of April 21, 1978, which concluded that: “While Israel may undertake, in the occupied territories, actions necessary to meet its military needs and to provide for orderly government during the occupation, for reasons indicated above the establishment of the civilian settlements in those territories is inconsistent with international law.”
The State Department’s legal opinion has not been challenged until now even if some past administrations have put their head in the sand in order to avoid insisting on its enforcement. By undercutting the universally accepted legal basis for opposing Israeli settlements, the Trump administration has isolated itself and removed the possibility that the Palestinians and most of the rest of the world will pay attention to or believe anything it has to say about the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
It is hard to understand why the administration chose to make this determination now, unless for political reasons to help Benjamin Netanyahu remain prime minister — something Pompeo has denied. And it is equally hard to see how this decision helps the administration advance its stated interest in promoting a “deal of the century.” In fact, this policy decision effectively tells Palestinians and Israelis there is no deal to be had while Trump remains in office.
Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
