Foreign ministers of four European countries and Canada joined the US last Tuesday in opposing a decision by the Netanyahu government to regularize the status of nine Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria ("Jewish settler outposts in the occupied West Bank"), and to build some 10,000 more homes ("settler units") over the coming decade.The foreign ministers said that they "strongly oppose unilateral actions which will only serve to exacerbate tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution."
My favorite part of this statement is the term "unilateral." Retroactively denominating and proactively planning homes for Israelis in Judea and Samaria is apparently forbidden unilateral action. And I ask: What does unilateral mean in this context?
Does it mean that without Palestinian or American approval Israel must not move an inch? Does it mean that absent a Palestinian partner for peace who is willing to come to terms with reality – which is that Judea and Samaria are part of the Jewish people's patrimony and that much of this area will become Israeli sovereign territory in any future peace accord – the "Jewish settlement situation" should be frozen?
(This, of course, as opposed to Palestinian settlement activity in Area C of the West Bank which continues at breakneck speed with European funding and support.)
Well, in the eyes of at least some international observers I fear that this is exactly what "unilateral" means. Full stop. Israel has no legitimacy whatsoever over the Green Line, and it should begin dismantling settlements – never mind that it should not arrogantly add to the settlements.
And even more so, I sense that in their eyes, it means that the State of Israel itself is retroactively one big mistaken unilateral action taken by the wayward Jews against the "indigenous" Palestinian people and against a so-called "international consensus."
To all this, I have the following to say:
Re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel after two thousand years of dispersion and persecution indeed was a "unilateral" action taken by the Jewish people!
Jews unilaterally decided to rally around the Zionist banner and reclaim Zion. Over the past 120 years they unilaterally fought their way back into the Land of Israel against Ottoman, British, and Arab opposition.