Top US Democrat breaks with Obama on settlements

Published today (updated) 13/08/2009 16:16

 Jerusalem – Ma'an –

A senior member of US President Barack Obama's party broke ranks on Thursday, blaming Palestinians for a lack of peace negotiations and casting doubt on calls for a settlement freeze.

"I don't think settlements are nearly the big issue that confronts the Palestinians and the Israelis in reaching an agreement," said US House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer at a West Jerusalem news conference.

"I think the largest thing impeding them at this point in time is the unwillingness of [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas to sit down now," added Hoyer, who is leading a 29-member delegation to Israel and the West Bank sponsored by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest US pro-Israel lobbyist group.

The delegation comes during the Congress' August recess. Most of its members hailed from conservative southern and western districts, including several from Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arizona.

During the visit Hoyer did not directly criticize Obama, but voiced significant doubts about the White House's push for a freeze on the West Bank settlements, which are illegal under international law. Obama's demand has been repeatedly rejected by Israel's current government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. President Abbas has refused to resume negotiations until Israel complies with a freeze.

Asked by Ma'an whether, in light of his comments, the US still backs the Road Map peace plan, which calls for an immediate stop to settlement construction, Hoyer said, "US policy has not changed. US policy has been for a number of presidents, … the United States policy has been for a stop of any additional settlements."

However, the powerful lawmaker from the state of Maryland said he had sympathy for the Israeli government's refusal to halt construction.

"Netanyahu's standpoint and Israel's standpoint is that if one of your children gets married and wants to live close to you, there needs to be a place to live [in a settlement]. That's not an irrational argument. For the Palestinians' point of view, that's not a freeze. That's not an irrational argument."

Hoyer also reiterated that in his view, settlements built in East Jerusalem (according to boundaries set by Israel) are not as objectionable as those in the rest of the West Bank.

"I personally perceive Jerusalem as a unified city. I continue to view it as a unified city," he said, articulating a view at odds with the US State Department, which has said that the demand for a freeze applies to all Israeli construction across the Green Line.

Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967, and later annexed the whole of the city in a move rejected by the United Nations Security Council and the US government, as well as the international community at large.

Hoyer's Democratic delegation follows a group of 25 Republican lawmakers led by Congressman Eric Cantor of Florida a week earlier. The conservative representatives' delegation visited an Israeli settlement in the northern West Bank during the trip.

Like Cantor, the Democrats also met with Palestinian caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. One congresswoman, Betsy Markey of Colorado, also said the group had the opportunity to "drive throughout Ramallah," the seat of the Palestinian Authority.

Fayyad's administration has won the favor of Western governments, in part due to the PA's US-funded efforts to dismantle armed Palestinian resistance groups.

Alluding to the security crackdown Markey said, "We were all very impressed with the prime minister [Fayyad] – his commitment to the right of Israel to exist and his commitment to making sure that Palestine has a structure in place to develop as an unoccupied state."

Markey was responding to a question about whether Fayyad also accepted Israel's right to exist "as a Jewish state," a formulation understood by Palestinians as a cancellation of the right of refugees to return to their homes in land taken by Israel in 1948.

Hoyer responded to this question by saying that, in the meeting with Fayyad, "I posited that it was absolutely essential Israel needed to be recognized as a Jewish state."

Ultimately, Hoyer said, "I posited that and the PM did not disagree with that – with my premise."