Researcher in Israeli settlement affairs
With the remaining of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in power, the historical legacy of President Barack Obama's administration and its impact on the issue of the relationship with Israel, especially what regard to the Israeli settlement issue, it cannot be overlooked.
Netanyahu is pressing to accelerate the process of granting approvals to housing in the West Bank settlements, due to his uncertainty that he could pass settlement projects during the term of President Biden, thus expressing the doubts of the political level in Israel that there is a normal relationship with this administration during the coming period.
A number of political analysts went that the event that occurred during the reign of President Barack Obama and sparked a diplomatic crisis, will be strongly present in determining the form of the relationship with Biden.
In 2010, Israeli housing ministry announced the approval of settlement units while Vice President Biden was in a visit to Israel, a diplomatic crisis was triggered. The tension in the relationship between USA & Israel reached to a high level.
Obama avoided using Veto in security council to prevent decision denounce the Israeli settlement.
The next few months will constitute a major test for the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu. If there was a tendency for Netanyahu to exploit what remains of President Trump's term to push for large settlement projects to impose them as a fait accompli that the next US administration needs to deal with as it happened and ended, he would have bought the man’s enmity from the start.
What reinforces Israel’s fears of a diplomatic confrontation with President Joe Biden’s administration is his recent desire to go easy on Iran, & may be remove it from his list of priorities - to focus on internal issues - by re-negotiating with it about the nuclear agreement from which Trump withdrew previously.
This could enhance the chances of the next administration’s focus on the settlement issue. Settlement in the West Bank was always the core of the conflict with the Palestinians, denying the two-state solution.
Martin Indik, a former US peace negotiator during the Clinton and Obama administrations, notes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer a "vital interest" for Washington, and he does not expect it to be a priority for Biden.
However, matters may deviate to another path. Through Biden’s previous position in the Obama administration, he knows the region well, so may be neither settlements nor Israel in general on his scale of priorities, so there will not be any crisis regarding the settlement issue.
Netanyahu will strive to benefit from this point, and he will not fabricate a crisis with the Biden administration.
He may stop or freeze settlements in the coming period to avoid any crises that may push him to lose his political position.
There are other factors that play an important role in the settlement issue in the coming period, most complicated is the form of the relationship with the Arab countries, and the extent of the Israel’s willingness to freeze part of the settlement operations, or, even, exchange the settlement with normalization to bring other countries to the line. The move is a supreme interest to form A front against Iran, as well as giving Netanyahu an advantage in any upcoming elections to claim that he has brought stability to Israel in the region.
Most hated dream for Israel will be the repetition of the scenario that happened with the stance of former President Obama against settlements.
Confirming support for the two-state solution, stopping the annexation of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, and reopening the American consulate in East Jerusalem, mean the end of the Israeli-US spring.
The reopening of the US Consulate in East Jerusalem is expected, as a Prelude to the return of relationship and aids to the Palestinian authority.
Diplomatic crisis with Joe Biden's administration will cost Israel a significant part of the American support, creating chance to form an international front to pressure to stop settlement activity.
Between the hammer and the anvil, the withdrawal from the settlement projects in the West Bank, means a death certificate for Netanyahu
In the end, it does not seem that Israel will take major steps in the settlement issue, at least in the near future, because it looks with anticipation to the nature of the American moves in the Iranian path.
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