Opinion: The US needs to get tough with Israel

Los Angeles Times- The recent settlement freeze debacle shows the U.S. cannot proceed with its all-carrot, no-stick policy toward Israel if it wants to see a change in its behavior.

When diplomatic sources revealed that the United States was abandoning efforts for an Israeli settlement freeze, many surely did not know whether to laugh or cry. The first two years of U.S.-Israeli relations under the Obama administration has been a debacle. For the next two, what is learned from that failure, and how it's applied, will be of utmost importance.

...No legitimate Palestinian leader can negotiate with Israel while it continues to colonize Palestinian land.

The U.S. strategy began to fail when it expected the Israelis to freeze settlements upon request. What the Obama administration apparently didn't realize was that Israel would not change its behavior without an incentive. When that finally became clear, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made an offer that amounted to a bribe.

Generally, the incentive to rectify bad behavior in the international community — behavior like expanding settlements despite road map obligations and international law — is delivered by sticks, not carrots. But the deal offered to Israel, which included billions of dollars' worth of advanced F-35s in exchange for a 90-day freeze, was all carrot and no stick.

...At a moment when the world needed to hear a change in direction, we instead were told that the United States is committed to repeating the same failed policies of the past. This is precisely why Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil recently determined they wouldn't wait for the bankrupt American-led process and recognized the state of Palestine.

America's political response? Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village) rushed a resolution to the House floor expressing opposition to such declarations of Palestinian statehood. The resolution, which passed, is a timely reminder of the increasing gap between Washington and the international community on this issue.

If there is no change in the U.S. approach to Israeli violations, no one will take this administration seriously: not the Israelis, certainly not the Palestinians, and presumably not the international community. Who can blame them? Read more