Hillary Clinton : Reducing Settlement Building Not Preferable ‘We Would Like to See Everything Ended Forever’
To counter-act statements she made earlier in the week in praise of Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed slowing, but not halting altogether of settlement growth, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the slowing of settlement growth should be seen as a first step.
Clinton was careful to say that though the United States would ‘prefer’ for all settlement development to come to a halt, at this point a slow down of settlement growth is the best they could hope for and should be the basis for continued peace talks between Israel and Palestine.
Clinton’s use of the word ‘prefer’ is quite interesting because it makes it seem as if the United States is putting up with continued (albeit at a slower pace) settlement development in the West Bank even though they would like the practice to come to a complete halt. This leads to the question of why not place more direct pressure on Israel to end all settlement development outright, rather than merely putting up with a slowdown?
Yes, the United States does not want to alienate Israel nor does it want to slow down the peace agreements upon a single point, but in this case, that one single point is continuing to take away more and more land from a future Palestinian state day by day. It seems counter-productive to resume peace talks while the theoretical second Palestinian state continues to erode with each new settlement that goes up:
On Wednesday, Clinton insisted “our policy on settlement has not changed.”
“We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity. Ending all settlement activity current and future would be preferable,” she told reporters after talks with Mubarak.Of the Israeli offer, she said, “It is not what we would prefer because we would like to see everything ended forever.”
“But it is something that I think shows at least a positive movement forward toward final status issues being addressed,” she said.
“It is nowhere near enough, but I think when you keep your eye on what we want to achieve, it is a better place to be than the alternative, which is unrestrained (growth),” she said.
Aboard her plane Wednesday as it flew toward a British refueling stop before returning to Andrews Air Force Base, Clinton insisted that “we have to figure out a way to get into the relaunch of negotiations.”
Abbas not budging:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is sticking to his refusal to resume negotiations until Israel stops building settlements. He rejected the Israeli plan to complete 3,000 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and to continue to construct public buildings and other construction in east Jerusalem – a territory Palestinians hope will be their future capital.
Hillary Clinton: US Wants Israel To Stop Building West Bank Settlements ‘Forever‘
View Comments