Here we go again.
In what the New York Times calls a historic shift, President Obama has called for the limiting of settlements in the West Bank. And so no one was surprised to hear loads of  criticism from the right, this one courtesy of the ever-ideological Caroline Glick.
The truth is that this debate over settlement construction is anything but new: Israelis (and their American counterparts)Â have been spitting hummus at each other over this issue since 1968 and would have continued to do so regardless of Obama’s policy priorities. Nor is presidential involvement in Israel’s West Bank activity a new development. Oslo, anyone?
And so we hear the old debates about “natural growth,” “obstacles to peace” and such buzzwords. Obama says:
The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.
 Glick retorts:
The administration’s policy toward Jewish building… expose[s] a massive level of hostility toward Israel. Not only does it fly in the face of explicit US commitments to Israel undertaken by the Bush administration, it contradicts a longstanding agreement between successive Israeli and American governments not to embarrass each other.
Moreover, the fact that the administrationcannot stop attacking Israel about Jewish construction… but has nothing to say about Hizbullah’s projected democratic takeover of Lebanon next week, Hamas’s genocidal political platform, Fatah’s involvement in terrorism, or North Korean ties to Iran and Syria, has egregious consequences for the prospects for peace in the region.
The fact that Glick has her facts wrong in that first paragraph (that “explicit commitment is indeed anything but explicit and even the pre-9/11 Bush used to criticize Israel) does not concern me.
Her second paragraph, though, is a different story. This is a familiar trope among Obama’s rightist critics: why does he focus on Israel when the Palestinians, etc., are doing more wrong? This challenge poses Obama as “anti-Israel,” “unrealistic,” “naive” and such.
Yes, Hamas and Hizballah do terrible things. Yes, Fatah is corrupt and ineffective. Yes, Iran and Syria pose a threat to the region. But Obama can’t engage Hamas or Hizballah, would gain nothing from investing in the powerless Fatah, and has terrible relations (to say the least) with Iran and Syria. In short, all of Israel’s enemies happen to hate the US, too. So what does Barack do?
 He works with Israel, a faithful ally. By calling on the Israelis to stop settlement growth, Obama isn’t being naive, much less anti-Israel. He’s realizing that the US and Israel have worked together toward peace in the past and can do so again. If Israel is all he can influence, he’ll try his best.
And if we are going for a two-state solution, the idea that settlement construction may continue is absurd. That does not, in any way, preclude stopping Palestinian terror or guaranteeing security for Israelis, both of which are moral and necessary. Continuation of settlement growth does nothing but create further obstacles to the realization of Palestinian national aspirations in the West Bank and darken Israel’s image in the eyes of the Arab world and international community.
So by working with Israel, the only country he can work with, Obama is being a pragmatist, not an Israel-hater.
All of this, however, is next to irrelevant, because again, this debate isn’t new and even Obama’s best speech would not end it. The American government cannot stop settlements from growing; only the Israelis can, and Prime Minister Netanyahu shows no signs of doing so. I, for one, applaud Obama’s attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but settlements will stop only when the Israelis realize that they block the path to peace. The Israeli public is close to that realization, but I doubt that Obama’s interjection will do much to catalyze it.
So let the debate rage on. Somewhere in Israel, right now, I assure you that two people are arguing over it. The fact that Obama has joined the fray says little about if, and when, this fight will end.
