Re-freeze

Jonathan Tobin had one of his wonderfully sensible, reasonable, cogent columns up at Contentions yesterday, defending Bibi's anticipated capitulation to Obama's pressure to "extend" the "moratorium" on building in Judea and Samaria for another 90 days.  It's an odd sort of defense, especially when he starts out conceding so much.

The debate over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to renew a settlement-building freeze in the West Bank has been rightly characterized by my colleagues Jennifer Rubin, Evelyn Gordon, and J.E. Dyer as a measure that will not advance the basic interests of the United States or Israel and that will undermine the slim chances for a genuine peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Others are also correct when they point out that this decision, like virtually every other concession made by Israel since the start of the Oslo process in 1993, strengthens the incorrect perception that the Palestinians are the only lawful owners of all of the West Bank.

You know a but is coming, and it does, but then the concessions continue.

But as much as Oslo has been completely discredited by the Palestinians' refusal to make peace, Netanyahu cannot afford to act as if the desire of the United States to pursue another round of peace talks is irrelevant. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be among the last people on Planet Earth to fail to understand [sic] that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has neither the will nor the interest in signing a peace accord, no matter where Israel's borders are drawn. Their decision -- to hound Netanyahu to renew the freeze for 90 days even after a 10-month freeze was ignored by the Palestinians -- is an absurd policy that mires the administration in a dead-end process that can win them no laurels and few thanks from a Muslim world that Obama is still clearly interested in appeasing.

Indeed.  And yet ... ?

Yet would it have been prudent of Netanyahu to simply say no indefinitely? Another three months of a freeze won't do more to undermine Israel's rights or security than the previous 17 years of fruitless negotiations have done, whereas another spat with the White House that could have been blamed on Israel would worsen the country's position.

Prudent?  I guess it depends upon whom you ask.  Couples waiting to move out of their parents' cramped apartments might think it prudent.  Hospitals needing more surgeries and beds and schools needing more classrooms might think it prudent.  Even day laborers, many of them Arabs, who need the construction work to feed their families might think it prudent.  But obviously, Jonathan Tobin doesn't.  He doesn't want Israel to come off as obstinate, obstructionist or insensitive to the needs of ... President Obama.  That could worsen the country's position.  

What could a few more months of a freeze hurt?  It's not as if the Arabs in the territories are busy creating their own facts on the ground, busy building themselves and laying claim to more land that they can never be removed from.  (Actually, it is.)  It's not as if, in the coming negotiations that Obama envisions, both Israeli and U.S. interests in peace might benefit from raising the stakes of failure and the price of obstructionism by the other side.  (Actually, it is.)  It's not as if, every time Israel makes one of these concessions, both the palestinians and the "international community" up the ante, the rhetoric and the scope of their demands.  (Actually, it is.)

And then there's this.  A(nother) split in the Likud would not be a positive development right now.  Not to mention this refreshingly candid assessment from an Arab League spokesman.

"If the news is true about there being a settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem and that takes the criticism off Israel, I cannot imagine that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side or the Arab side," said Hesham Youssef, an official with the office of the secretary general of the Arab League.

There is a point at which Israel is going to have to just say no.  Maybe this isn't it, but if not now, when?  Those of us who opposed the first freeze had little doubt it would come to this.  Nor can there be much doubt that at the end of these 90 days, there will be one more sacrifice required in order to prove that Israel is "serious."  And another after that, and another after that.  Perhaps in two years, Obama will be preparing to move back to Chicago and we'll be looking forward to a mending of the relationship between Jerusalem and the White House.  But perhaps not.  Then what?

Jennifer Rubin and Evelyn Gordon and J.E. Dyer are all absolutely right.  And there's just no merit to the argument that Israel needs to keep bowing and scraping and backing up and that somehow this appeasement, if it doesn't exactly endear her to the "international community," will stop them from hating her more.  Will it?  How has that worked out so far?  And yet ...

And yet, it seems that Bibi is going to go for it.  Again.  Given the chance.