In 1991, in one of the more famous incidents of U.S. pressure on Israel, President George H.W. Bush threatened to withhold loan guarantees to the Jewish state. The money was slated for the resettlement of Soviet Jewish refugees, but the argument was about settlements in Judea and Samaria: Bush wanted a halt to Israeli construction in disputed territory.
Bush had also prevented Israel from responding to Iraqi strikes on Israeli civilians during the first Gulf War. And both strong-hand tactics were ultimately aimed at ensuring Israel played ball with the administration’s plans for wide-ranging Arab-Israeli peace talks.
Bush’s success in putting together an anti-Saddam coalition, and then that coalition’s success in its war aims, put the president in strong position diplomatically. And Bush used it to limit Israel’s options and to meet his demands.
But through all of that, those demands were specific. Bush wanted a settlement freeze. When he didn’t get it, he withheld the money. Israel did agree, however, to join the Madrid talks, and Bush addressed some of the Israeli concerns over Palestinian representation.
This is remembered as a major flare-up in U.S.-Israel relations, and it was. But looking back, it all seems so simple. The U.S. and Israel were negotiating.
Whatever one thinks of UK premier Andy Burnham’s announcement of boycotts and sanctions against Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria, there is no process to it and no tangible goal. It is a policy of chaos and spite, not one of demands and concessions.
What would prevent the sanctions from going into force? Apparently nothing. What would cause Burnham to rescind them once in force? No one knows.
Here is Burnham:
“The measures we are taking are about targeting illegal settlements and increasing the pressure on the Israeli government to change course…. The measures we are announcing today are about protecting the only solution that could see the Israeli and Palestinian people living side by side in peace and security—something that people up and down the UK desperately want to see. The government I lead will keep working with our partners around the world to keep that hope alive.”
It is striking in its utter lack of substance.
The closest thing to an intellectually honest defense of Burnham has come from folks who say that “settler violence” is bad and therefore he is right to impose sanctions. But that is a nonsense formulation. I agree that violence against Palestinians is bad. Yet I don’t think permanently causing Palestinian unemployment and discriminating against businesses in a specific area based on the religion of their owners is good policy. You can, in fact, oppose bad ideas with a clear conscience.
Is there a reduction in “settler violence” that Burnham seeks in order to lift sanctions? Numbers, percentages, anything? There’s no set correlation between events in Judea and Samaria and the sanctions against Israel. So this policy will harm both Israelis and Palestinians without incentivizing improvements.
Moving on to the other part of the boycott’s justification: the two-state solution. George H.W. Bush, as mentioned above, had a specific diplomatic process laid out, and he wanted Israel’s good-faith participation—or else.
The fact that there was an or else doesn’t negate the fact that there was a specific demand that could be met.
What is Burnham’s peace process? What does he want Israel to do regarding a two-state solution? Are we to understand that Israel will be sanctioned until there is a Palestinian state? Because regarding arms sales, that is explicitly what his foreign secretary said yesterday: “as long as the occupation persists.”
Israel has repeatedly offered the two-state solution only to be rejected every time by Palestinian leadership, so this puts Israel in a bind. The Israeli government cannot make the Palestinian government want a state. And because the Palestinian side is the “no” in each peace process, Burnham is telling the Palestinians that so long as they do not accept statehood in the disputed territories, the UK will continue to punish Israel.
If Burnham has a specific proposal to put to the Israelis, then we’ve at least got a negotiating process and the ability to set and reach goals. Until that happens, there is no honest defense of Burnham’s announcement as policy. You may believe his intentions are good if you are feeling extra-generous, but he has initiated a deeply irresponsible course of action, one in which there is, thus far, nothing Israel can do to comply with the whims of a man who announces policies before he has given them a moment’s thought.