Ban Ki-moon declared Israeli settlement in Palestine to be illegal last week. He said, “Let us be clear: all settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory, and this must stop.” Yet two days later Binyamin Netenyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, asserted their “right to build”. There are currently plans to build 1,600 more houses in Palestinian Jerusalem on top of the 500,000 settlers already living there and in the West Bank.

BY BEN FINCH

These plans for 1,600 extra houses in Ramat Shlomo, East Jerusalem, have completely disrupted the revival of peace talks between Israel and Palestine fostered by Barack Obama, as President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine will not enter talks whilst settlement building continues. Palestinians have long been complaining about their inability to gain planning permission to build in this area while Israeli buildings continue to pop up unhindered as if it were SimCity.

Joe Biden, the vice-president of the US, was in Israel when the announcement was made, and quickly issued a strong statement. “The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now,” he said. Biden was in Israel to cajole the two sides into direct talks following negotiations with George Mitchell, who played a crucial role in the Good Friday Agreement.

This has blown into a crisis over the past couple of weeks. Two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian militants were killed on the Gaza border in an exchange of fire. Both sides have different stories. Israel states that they found the militants “planting explosives along the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip”. Hamas say that they ambushed the soldiers.
Israeli tanks briefly entered Gaza following this, and there were reports of firing from the Israeli Navy, artillery and helicopter gunships leaving five Palestinians injured and ambulances unable to attend because of the gunfire. While this is nothing like the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January 2008 and the war crimes committed by both sides, it is a significant, and worrying, increase in violence.

While damning Israeli settlements, Ban Ki-moon stated that he would like to see a Palestinian state set up within the next two years. This is surely unlikely as Israel do not appear to even compromise on any grounds. Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, with only essential medical supplies getting through. All Palestinian trade in Gaza is carried out through tunnels, including the smuggling of rockets, which the blockade is ostensibly to stop.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas following “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008 has now been over for more than a year. Rockets continue to be fired from Gaza, and Israel continues to retaliate (or Israel continues to attack and Gaza continues to retaliate).

Following his recent domestic triumph with healthcare, and foreign, more bilateral nuclear disarmament with Russia, it would seem that Obama needs to bring some of his “Yes we can” to the Middle East, although Netenyahu’s talks with him last week appear to have come to nothing.