Israel and the Settlement Issue

President Obama's June 4 speech to the Islamic world, given in Cairo, Egypt, caused me to think about the new U.S. focus on Israeli settlements. What follows is just a simple observation based on the President's speech and my brief thinking session. In his speech, President Obama called upon Israel to halt not only the development of new settlements, but also to stop the natural growth of existing settlements. Of course, this demand by the President is not something new. The United States has expressed its reservations about Israeli settlements for many years, but Israel has rarely been pressed on the matter. This is a tough issue for Israel, and one that has the potential to seriously damage U.S. - Israeli relations.

Israel, at least under Benjamin Netanyahu, is not about to concede completely on settlements. While Netanyahu has agreed to freeze the building of new settlements, he is unlikely to prevent the natural growth of existing settlements that is necessary to accommodate typical family growth.

This is dangerous ground for the U.S. - Israeli alliance. Israel is no longer as dependent on the United States as it has been in past years, and the Jewish State currently enjoys a position of relative strength in the Middle East. None if its neighbors are able to seriously threaten Israel's survival, at least for now. Hezbollah and Hamas take their shots, of course, but neither is going to bring about the destruction of Israel. Lebanon is too weak and fractured to pose a real challenge, and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria are militarily incapable of winning a war against the IDF. The greatest threat to Israel right now is Iran, and there are indications that Washington and Jerusalem are growing apart when it comes to the best approach for dealing with Tehran's nuclear weapons program. Israel may feel compelled to act without consulting with the United States if it feels Iran's nuclear program reaches a critical point. Additionally, Israel is not nearly as dependent on U.S. aid as in the past, with financial assistance to Jerusalem, measured as a percentage of GDP, a fraction of what it used to be.

I don't believe for a minute that Israel would abstain from action against Iran just because the United States does not want it to. Quite the contrary, given Israel's current position in the region, I believe Israel will act in what it believes to be its best interests regardless of what the United States thinks.

The United States has chosen to focus on settlements in its relationship with Israel instead of focusing on Iran or regional terrorism. The current administration believes that resolution of the settlement issue can provide an opening to an accommodation that might lead to a two-state peace deal. But Israel is concerned with greater issues that it feels directly threaten its national security.

It may not seem like a big deal to the casual observer, but disagreement on what is important to Israel has the potential to cause a serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations, one that could take many years to repair.