Antony Blinken's Senate hearing was misunderstood - opinion

FEBRUARY 3, 2021 21:07

US SECRETARY of State Antony Blinken removes his face mask before holding his first press briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 27. (photo credit: CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS) — US SECRETARY of State Antony Blinken removes his face mask before holding his first press briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 27.

(photo credit: CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS)

Blinken’s presentation before the Senate committee was a more realistic assessment of the current situation in Israeli-Palestinian relations

Avi Gil’s article in The Jerusalem Post on January 26 decrying Antony Blinken’s performance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is a rather astonishing critique. According to Gil, Blinken’s remarks on the subject of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict “raised concerns” about the new administration’s approach to this issue. Gil deplores Blinken’s failure to refer to what he describes as the “basic parameters” of a proposed settlement of the dispute. To Gil, the most important matter is the necessity of a binding international decision, which only the United States can lead, that includes “a demarcation of borders based on the pre-‘67 line [and] a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem.”

One wonders in which world Gil operates. He fails to appreciate that the Knesset in 1980 overwhelmingly adopted a law proclaiming Jerusalem “complete and united is the capital of Israel.” He also fails to recognize that the concept of the ‘67 borders as anything but an armistice line, and that it was duly nullified by Security Council resolution 242 adopted after the Six Day War, which declared that all states in the Middle East are entitled to “secure and recognized borders.” President Lyndon Johnson, an active proponent of this Security Council resolution, repeatedly stressed that it was absolutely necessary that Israel’s new borders be such that they would deter potential future aggression against the Jewish state.

This resolution has served as the bedrock of America’s Middle Eastern policy ever since its adoption in November 1967. And while President Trump, in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital stated that he was not declaring anything about lines between Israel and the Palestinians, the US Congress, in the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, stated that the policy of the United States was that Jerusalem should remain “an undivided city,” and serve as Israel’s capital.

Gil seems to rely on Security Council resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, which many describe as president Barack Obama’s parting gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It both endorses resolution 242 and seeks to overturn it by promoting the pre-‘67 border as the dividing line between Israel and a future Palestinian state. In other words, resolution 2334 is a prescription for redividing Jerusalem.

For its part, Israel categorically rejects 2334 as an exercise in futility. The resolution has no force since it was adopted under Chapter 6 of the United Nations Charter, which is limited to recommendations. Moreover, Washington abstained in the Security Council vote, which was 14 to 0, so resolution 2334 binds no one, and least of all the United States.

In sum, Blinken’s presentation before the Senate committee was a more realistic assessment of the current situation in Israeli-Palestinian relations, and reveals more prudence in devising American foreign policy than Gil credits him with.

The writer is the James G. McDonald Professor, emeritus, of American history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and author of Jerusalem in America’s Foreign Policy (Kluwer Law International, 1998).