While US President Donald Trump was entertaining Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington this week, a summit meeting between Israel and the European Union scheduled for 28 February was postponed following the passage of a new Israeli law which enables the expropriation of private Palestinian land. The new law was condemned by the UK, France, Germany, the EU and the United Nations. The US has kept silent.
The talks in Washington between Trump and Netanyahu were monitored not only by Middle Eastern leaders, but also by European ones. The latter are eager to work out what Trump meant when he vowed during his election campaign to be the “most pro-Israeli president ever”.
Trump is not the first US president to have promised during his election campaign to move the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, as Trump did in the run-up to the elections last November. Both former presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush made the same promise, but for anyone to act upon such a promise he or she would need to be oblivious to the political, strategic and security realities of the Middle East.
No American president has managed to escape the political complexities of the region, and Trump is no different. The US president appeared to be shifting closer to the political centre on several contentious issues before Netanyahu's visit to Washington, and in an interview with the Israeli daily Israel Hayom (Israel Today) Trump said that settlement construction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was “unhelpful” and called on Israel “to be reasonable with respect to peace”.
This change in tone forced Netanyahu to adjust his position before arriving in Washington, promising “responsible policies, policies that are given careful consideration, and that's how I intend to act” in his talks with Trump. “To believe there are no restrictions now would be a mistake,” Netanyahu told members of his Likud Party with respect to Israeli settlement expansion.
The first meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was always going to be monitored attentively around the world. Observers will be looking at the body language and the rhetoric used by the two men for any policy clues, and if nothing else the visit should help to clarify the ambiguous and contradictory policies Trump has promoted up to now and how far he may go to please Israel.
Sensing an opportunity, members of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government have intensified their pressure in recent days in a bid to convince Netanyahu to argue for hardline policies, specifically on settlements and the peace negotiations with the Palestinians, during his visit to Washington.
It is unlikely that all these can be achieved, but Netanyahu will try to test Trump's enthusiasm towards Israel and the US administration's willingness to act upon some of the promises he gave during his campaign.
“Trump and I see eye-to-eye on the dangers emanating from the region, but also on the opportunities,” Netanyahu said, referring to how the talks would set the tone for US-Israeli ties. There is a lot at stake for the two countries, the region and the world. For Europe in particular, the government led by Netanyahu is hardly felt to be a reliable partner and its policies could help unravel the Middle East if it were left to its own devices with Trump's right-wing government in the US.
There are ample reasons for concern. Netanyahu announced the approval of more than 6,000 new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the first two weeks of Trump's presidency.
His chief political rival and leader of the far-right and pro-settlement Jewish Home Party Neftali Bennett publicly cautioned Netanyahu not to mention the words “two-state solution” in his talks with Trump, which would put Israel at odds with long-standing US and European policies.
EUROPEAN CONCERNS: Before Netanyahu's departure for Washington, he did the diplomatic rounds in Europe, though without much success.
Netanyahu, a fierce opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, has been trying to establish an “anti-Iran front” in his bid to build a consensus for tougher sanctions against Tehran. However, the answer he has received from the UK and Germany to his demands has been a straightforward no.
British Prime Minister Theresa May held her ground during talks with Netanyahu last week in London when he called on the UK to impose new sanctions on Iran. May defended the nuclear agreement, arguing that the deal was preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons without resorting to war.
“The prime minister was clear that the nuclear deal is vital and must be properly enforced and policed, while recognising concerns about Iran's pattern of destabilising activity in the region,” a Downing Street spokesperson told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The importance of protecting the nuclear deal with Iran was also a central theme during a visit by Federica Mogherini, European Union foreign policy chief, last week to the US. Mogherini, who met with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump's advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner and members of Congress, said her main aim in Washington was to discuss the nuclear accord.
“I was reassured by what I heard in the meetings on the intention to stick to the full implementation of the agreement,” she said.
Her visit suggests concerns among European and other countries, including Russia and China, that the Trump administration may intend to withdraw from the nuclear deal. However, the European concerns regarding US and Israeli policy in the Middle East are of course wider than the deal alone, and with the passage of the new Israeli law which enables the expropriation of private Palestinian land the reaction from Europe has been one of unreserved condemnation.
“It is of great concern that the bill paves the way for significant growth in settlements deep in the West Bank, threatening the viability of the two-state solution,” a senior British foreign office official told the Weekly. “We reiterate our support for a two-state solution leading to a secure Israel that is safe from terrorism and a contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian state,” he added.
Mogherini also strongly condemned Israel's so-called “regularisation law”. “The law may provide for ‘legalising' numerous settlements and outposts previously considered as illegal even under Israeli law, which would be contrary to commitments made by Israeli governments and illegal under international law,” she said.
“Should it be implemented, the law would further entrench a one-state reality of unequal rights, perpetual occupation and conflict,” Mogherini warned.
Germany also condemned the law, saying that its enactment by the Israeli Knesset had shaken Germany's faith in Israel's commitment to peace. “Our trust in the Israeli government's commitment to the two-state solution has been fundamentally shaken. We hope and look forward to the Israeli government renewing its commitment for the two-state solution to be reached through negotiations, and prove it by actual steps in accordance with the Middle East Quartet's demand,” a German Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.
France called on Israel to “take back” the law in order “to honour its international commitments”.
After the passage of the law in Israel, the summit between Israel and the European Union scheduled for 28 February was postponed. The meeting was meant to mark tightened cooperation between Israel and the EU and to set out a work plan and priorities for improving relations between the two sides.
In the face of world condemnation, the Israeli Foreign Ministry issued talking points to Israeli embassies abroad to stress to foreign diplomats that the “regularisation law” would not last long as the Israeli Supreme Court would overturn it.
US RELUCTANCE: The US has kept silent about the new law, with a senior American official saying the US would not respond until Israel's Supreme Court had ruled on the petition against the law.
This was an indication of how reluctant the Trump administration is to condemn Israel, leaving America's partners in Europe and the Middle East in need of reassurances.
Meanwhile, Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and his adviser on Middle Eastern affairs, has had exchanges with officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and elsewhere and has met King Abdullah II of Jordan in Washington. Palestinian Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj who visited Washington last week and met with US security and intelligence officials returned with positive messages from the Trump administration, sources said.
Given Kushner's position and his close relationship with Trump, the assumption is that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be high on the administration's agenda. However, Kushner is an unknown political quantity, and he has offered few insights into his political views.
He is an Orthodox Jew with deep religious and personal ties to Israel and was educated at Jewish schools where the West Bank was referred to by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria. His father, a friend with Netanyahu, invited the latter to stay in the family home in New Jersey in 1999.
But Kushner's views on matters like the settlements, the two-state solution, the Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem are not well understood. Even during his university years, his colleagues have said that he appeared to be an apolitical person who hardly expressed any political views on campus. But his loyalty to Israel is not in doubt.
Trump's task in the Middle East is a formidable one, and includes containing Iran and Hizbullah, re-starting the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, reassuring the Arab world and the Palestinians, pleasing Israel, and at the same time attempting to achieve lasting peace in the region.
The Trump administration may pay lip service to the two-state solution, but without a commitment and a willingness to pressure Israel, failure will be the only outcome.
In order for Trump to achieve the apparently unachievable and strike a lasting peace agreement, he needs to push Israel more than any other US president has ever done. However, no one expects him to go that far.
Trump's conflicting goals and the political reality of the Middle East will eventually become apparent and the complexity of the task will force him to readjust his positions. When that happens, the honeymoon period between Trump and Israel's right-wing government might come to an abrupt end to the relief of many in Europe and the Middle East.
