Greenblatt holds door open for east Jerusalem as Palestinian capital
US special envoy Jason Greenblatt appeared to give a nod in the direction of east Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital, even as he assured the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Israel’s right to the city was above international law.
Initially he appeared to douse the idea of a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians and the international community hold to be enshrined in UN resolutions and international law.
“The PLO and the Palestinian Authority continue to assert that east Jerusalem must be a capital for the Palestinians,” Greenblatt told the 15-member body that met in New York to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “But let’s remember: an aspiration is not a right,” adding, “Please do not read into that statement anything about the content of the political portion of the plan. That does not mean that the Palestinians can’t aspire to have a capital in east Jerusalem, with creative solutions that attempt to respect all three religions that cherish this incredible city. But if there is to be such a solution, only the parties themselves, through direct negotiations, can work this out.”
At the same time, Greenblatt told the Security Council that the United States holds that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.
“No international consensus or interpretation of international law will persuade the United States or Israel that a city in which Jews have lived and worshiped for nearly 3,000 years and has been the capital of the Jewish state for 70 years is not – today and forever – the capital of Israel,” he said.
Greenblatt clarified that “Jerusalem is a city of three world faiths,” and that freedom to worship there must be protected.
The US envoy spoke one month after the US unveiled the economic portion of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Trump administration does not intend to solely speak of economic peace for the Palestinians, Greenblatt said, and that a political plan is also necessary for success. A decision of when to publish
that US plan would be made soon, he added.
Greenblatt urged the Palestinian leadership and the international community to keep an open mind about the plan. In the interim, he called on the international community to abandon the “constant drumbeat of tired rhetoric that is designed to prevent progress and to bypass direct negotiations,” which makes it hard to discuss Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Greenblatt debunked the idea of an “international consensus” with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, noting that so much consensus had been achieved.
“International consensus is not international law,” Greenblatt said. “So let’s stop kidding ourselves. If a so-called international consensus had been able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would have done so decades ago. It didn’t.”
“International law” is also not the vehicle by which to resolve the conflict, he said, particularly given the vast differences in interpretation of law regarding the conflict.
“We will not get to the bottom of whose interpretation of ‘international law’ is correct on this conflict. There is no judge, jury or court in the world that the parties involved have agreed to give jurisdiction in order to decide whose interpretations are correct. A comprehensive and lasting peace will not be created by fiat of international law, or by these heavily wordsmithed, unclear resolutions,” said Greenblatt.
Trump’s peace plan is not “ambiguous” and “will provide sufficient detail so that people can see what compromises will be necessary to achieve a realistic, lasting, comprehensive solution to this conflict – the conflict that has robbed so much potential from Palestinians, Israelis and the region as a whole.”
Both Israelis and Palestinians will have to make “difficult compromises,” Greenblatt said.
He made no mentioned of the IDF demolition one day earlier of 12 West Bank Palestinian structures outside Jerusalem, but many of the UN member states who spoke at the Security Council denounced Israel for the demolitions, including the Palestinian Authority, the EU, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, France and Kuwait.
On the sidelines of the UN Security Council, UK Ambassador to the UN Karen Pierce read out a statement by EU council members Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and the UK. Estonia also joined as a future member.
The EU council members “strongly condemned” the demolition.
“We remain seriously concerned by the continued demolition of Palestinian property by Israeli authorities,” they said, adding that such action “is contrary to international humanitarian law and UN Security Council resolutions. In this
specific case, the demolitions were particularly egregious, as a number of the buildings were located in Areas A and B under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority according to the Oslo agreements, and thus constitute a violation of those agreements. They set a dangerous precedent that directly jeopardizes the two state solution.”
Separately, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on Tuesday slammed former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for accusing Israel of racism after the demolitions, calling their tweets “fake news.”
Rhodes wrote that Israel was demolishing the buildings just because they belonged to Palestinians, in a tweet that was promptly retweeted by Omar.
“Imagine having your home destroyed just because of who you are, and that being the point,” Rhodes wrote.
Omar, who has stirred controversy with several antisemitic remarks since taking office and has just announced that she is bringing forth a pro-BDS resolution, tweeted that “Ben is right. Palestinians deserve self-determination and statehood just like their neighbors, not destruction of their property and indefinite military occupation of their land. This has to stop!”
“Fake News: Obama Deputy NSA Ben Rhodes tweets that Palestinian homes destroyed this week by Israel solely for racist motivations,” Friedman wrote on his own Twitter. “Faker News: Rhodes’ lie immediately endorsed by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.”
Friedman pointed to the lengthy legal proceedings, and the selective razing applied only to structures that were built after the edict, to disavow the racism claims.
“Real News: Demolition authorized as to some but not all illegal structures on national security grounds by the highly regarded Israeli High Court of Justice after seven years of legal proceedings,” Friedman wrote. “Yet another phony charge of racism.” •