As little kids, its easy to brush it off as nothing when your friends are mean while at the same time exaggerating those negative actions of other classmates. When I was little and my friend Carl would hit me, we would usually yell a little bit and then get back to playing Legos or Super Nintendo, as if nothing had ever happened. However, when my friend Matt and I would get into a fight in elementary school, it usually ended with a trip to the principal’s office and a black eye or a bruise for one or both of us.
Israel, obviously, is America’s Carl. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama often find themselves “disappointed” with illegal settlement construction, but soon after, all is forgotten and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu comes to the U.S. and addresses a joint session of Congress, getting 29 standing ovations in a single speech.
At the same time, America lately has been treating Palestine a lot like Matt, except that Palestine doesn’t exactly have the resources to fight back, or the lobbyists (see: AIPAC) to take away campaign financing when the United States decides to screw them. And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas didn’t get any standing ovations during the speech to the Congress that he never got to give.
On Monday, the nations of UNESCO voted 107-14, with 52 abstentions, to admit Palestine as a member. Immediately following the vote, the State Department announced that, due to a decades-old legal requirement, it would be withholding a $60 million payment that was due this month to the organization that promotes literacy and education programs in Afghanistan, supports the advancement of women and girls around the world and makes efforts to protect free speech worldwide.
If the vote and the subsequent U.S. reaction say anything, it is that U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict has become decidedly one-sided and destructive to the peace process.
As Matthew Lee, a correspondent for the Associated Press, pointed out to State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland after the vote on Monday, “This was not particularly a banner day for U.S. diplomacy. If you count the abstentions, 159 countries did not vote the way [the United States] did. Only 13 did.”
In response to questioning from him regarding why the United States considers the action so detrimental, Nuland replied that the vote was “regrettable, premature, and undermines the prospect of getting where we want to go.”
So the United States immediately punished not only Palestine, but also the entire international community for failing to bow under U.S. pressure. Because the U.S. deemed the action “regrettable” and “premature,” we took away 22 percent of UNESCO’s operating budget.
At the same time, in response to the Palestinian Authority’s statehood bid at the United Nations, Israel has refused to pay the Palestinian Authority $81 million in tax revenues that the Israeli government collected for it. That money was never Israel’s and was always supposed to belong to Palestine, but Israel is still refusing to hand it over. On top of this, Netanyahu’s government announced that it would be expediting the construction of 2,000 more planned settlement homes in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The Obama administration and past administrations have almost universally condemned the building and expansion of settlements, yet have failed to ever successfully halt settlement expansion, outside of a 10-month freeze that expired in September 2010.
So, the United States punishes Palestine harshly for taking the largely symbolic step of joining UNESCO. But what does the Obama administration do when Israel unilaterally damages the peace process by building settlements in the territory (aka the West Bank) that is supposed to one day become Palestine? Well, when a 10-month settlement freeze was about to expire last September, Obama offered the Israeli military $1.8 billion worth of fighter jets to extend the freeze by 90 days.
Yes, America, apparently a 90-day break in a settlement process that is 44 years old is worth $1.8 billion of your money. Funny thing is, Netanyahu rejected the deal and new settlement construction began almost immediately after the initial 10-month freeze expired. I guess Israel really needs your money.
If the United States truly wants to play the role of mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict and maintain its leadership status internationally, the Obama administration must begin treating both the Israelis and the Palestinians as equal partners in peace. The administration cannot continue its policy of punishing the Palestinians for going against its wishes, while maintaining the policy of rewarding Israel financially for not disobeying and offering nothing but empty rhetoric when they do.