For those wondering why it has been so hard for the United States and Israel to get past their dispute over Jewish housing, consider the disconnect on display this week in Washington.
On Tuesday, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, made the rounds at the State Department and the Pentagon, warmly welcomed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. At a White House meeting with the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones Jr., President Obama dropped by, lingering for 40 minutes.
The message was clear: “The special relationship between Israel and the United States is unbreakable,” Mr. Barak declared.
Across town, on Capitol Hill, the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, was making his own rounds, unfurling maps that showed development in his city’s Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. His message was also clear: Jerusalem will not stop construction in East Jerusalem, either formally or informally, regardless of whether it hurts American efforts to restart peace negotiations.
“There is no freeze,” Mr. Barkat said. “We’re minding our own business, building the city for the residents.”
That is not what the Obama administration wants to hear, days before it hopes to begin indirect peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Nor is it the message the Israeli government wants to broadcast right now, even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also rejected American entreaties to stop building in politically sensitive East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has indicated that he is willing to return to the negotiating table. If all goes well at a meeting of the Arab nations this weekend, the United States could announce talks next week.
The Israeli Embassy was chagrined by Mr. Barkat’s remarks, made at a dinner with reporters. A senior Israeli diplomat noted that his visit was not coordinated with the Israeli government, that he was a free agent and that his views did not mirror the government’s.
“For him, it’s fantastic; for us, it’s lousy timing,” said a spokesman for the embassy, Jonathan Peled. He tried to put things in perspective, comparing Mr. Barkat to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty of Washington. “He’s not going to be the one negotiating peace with the Palestinians, in the same way that Fenty is not going to be the one negotiating the Start agreement with Russia,” Mr. Peled said.
That is true, of course, but beside the point. Mr. Barkat does have the authority to approve building projects in Jerusalem, without informing Mr. Netanyahu’s office in advance. Jerusalem’s ill-timed announcement that it planned to build 1,600 Jewish housing units in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo spoiled a good-will visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. last month and led to a deep chill between the United States and Israel.
American officials take Mr. Netanyahu’s word that he was caught off guard. But they have pressed him to make sure such a rude surprise does not happen again, particularly in the fragile early days of a negotiation, when Mr. Abbas could easily call the whole thing off.
“The issue is whether Netanyahu is getting a grip on his bureaucracy,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a co-author of the book “Myths, Illusions and Peace.”
In fact, Mr. Barkat said, there was a pause in the planning process. But he insisted that it was not in response to pressure from Mr. Netanyahu or the United States. Rather, he said municipal authorities were shocked after “being slapped in the face” by the United States. Now that the sting has worn off, Mr. Barkat said, planning has resumed.
Mr. Barkat is a passionate advocate for his city. But on the Middle East peace process, he is unyielding: Israel, he said, should never cede sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, because doing so would be tantamount to putting a “Trojan horse” in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood.
Mr. Barak, a former prime minister and veteran of the peace process, spoke of “mutual respect and shared values” with the United States, and kept the focus on common threats, like Iran. This week, at least, Washington was paying more heed to the elder statesman.
“This is mostly about local Israeli politics,” said the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley. “But obviously, if the decibel level rises significantly, local politics can have an impact on foreign policy.”
Front Page Features