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How to Achieve a Lasting Peace - Stop Focusing on the Settlements

[Washington Post] Ehud Olmert - By vast majorities, Congress endorsed President Bush's 2004 letter elaborating Israel's right to defend itself, by itself, against any threat and recognizing new realities on the ground in which the Jewish population centers in the West Bank would be an inseparable part of the state of Israel in any future permanent-status agreement. In November 2007, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Bush administration convened in Annapolis with the unified goal of solving all outstanding issues. Annapolis provided the framework for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians toward bringing an end to the conflict and to all claims. Yet today, the issue of settlement construction commands the agenda between the United States and Israel. This is a mistake that serves neither the process with the Palestinians nor relations between Israel and the Arab world. Although America has not supported settlement construction, it has, on some occasions, recognized the realities that have developed over 40 years. Sharon reached understandings with the U.S. administration regarding the growth and building of settlements, as part of the Roadmap. These understandings provided a working platform and, in my opinion, a proper balance to allow essential elements of stability and normality for Israelis living in settlements until their future would be determined in a permanent-status agreement. I adopted these understandings and followed them in close coordination with the Bush administration. Let me be clear: Without those understandings, the Annapolis process would not have taken on any form. Therefore, the focus on settlement construction now is not useful. The focus on settlement construction, while ignoring the previous understandings, unjustly skews the focus from a true political process and from dealing with the real strategic issues confronting the region. Settlement construction should be taken off the public agenda and moved to a discrete dialogue, as in the past. The writer was prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009.
2009-07-17 06:00:00
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