Israeli DM: ‘Unilateral Action’ Possible on Palestinian Deal

Officials Say Move Unlikely, Impractical

Speaking at a high profile security conference today, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested that Israel is growing impatient with the lack of progress in peace talks with the Palestinians, virtually stalled since September 2010, and suggested that there was consideration for a “unilateral action.

Since Israel has failed with past efforts, it is difficult to see how the nation could impose a peace settlement on the Palestinians, especially since the current far-right Israeli government is reluctant to make even trivial concessions.

Palestinian Authority officials rejected the idea, saying that an imposed deal would be impossible, since it would presumably not include Occupied East Jerusalem, the intended capital city of independent Palestine.

While the move is presented as “Gaza-like,” it would actually be considerably worse, since Israel actually did withdraw from the Gaza Strip (though keeping it walled in and blockaded), and clearly doesn’t intend to withdraw from the West Bank, but only to declare the Palestinian issue “solved” by drawing a tiny, powerless, and likely non-contiguous statelet inside its own borders.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.