Washington too slow to chide Israel

The last-ditch intervention in the Israel-Palestine conflict by Barack Obama’s administration is imbued with a sense of 11th-hour desperation. It is still worth assessing on its merits.

Benjamin Netanyahu, settler movement leaders and others have already dismissed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech as hostile to Israel, just as they did the UN Security Council resolution demanding a halt to all settlement in the occupied territories. But, as many within Israel and the Jewish diaspora have made clear, that is unfair.

True, they are anti-settlement, anti-occupation and, in the case of last week’s remarks, anti-Netanyahu. But they are also pro-Israel. As Kerry observed, the growth of settlements was destroying the two-state solution — for so long viewed as the best way to defend Israel.

Kerry’s speech, which also criticised the Palestinian leadership, was the most outspoken attack on Israeli government policy made by a senior US official for years. That does not mean Obama’s administration has veered from long-standing US policy; he has been less willing than predecessors to allow through critical UN resolutions and has pledged $38bn in military aid over the next decade. It reflects the shift in Israel’s coalition towards what the secretary of state called “the most right wing in Israeli history”.

Kerry said it was a time to stand up for what was right; but the sensible principles for negotiations were in essence those he drew up in March 2014. He reportedly thinks they should have been tabled formally, and wanted to make this speech that year.

That would have been a braver and bolder move. Remarks made as the administration exits, with no need to ponder electoral risks, inevitably carry far less weight; but with the continuing expansion of settlements, the changes on the ground matter as much. London, December 29.