Experts and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle indicated their opposition to a United Nations Security Council resolution imposing terms of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a hearing in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R – Fla.), lambasted the Palestinian Authority for its efforts to “delegitimize and isolate Israel on the international stage at the UN and other similar efforts.” She and Ted Deutch (D – Fla.), ranking member of the subcommittee, urged the Obama administration to oppose any efforts to circumvent direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, including by a potential UN resolution that imposes terms and deadlines of a peace deal on Israel. Deutch insisted that “the only path to two states for two peoples is through direct negotiations between the two parties. This should be encouraged by anyone who considers themselves to be a friend of Israel and by anyone who claims to want what’s best for the Palestinian people.”
David Makovsky, who served as a senior advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry on peace talks two years ago, stated that he is “rather skeptical regarding efforts to put forward parameters at the UNSC,” warning that they “would be interpreted by both sides as an imposed solution and could serve as a baseline for defiance rather than bringing the parties closer.”
Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official who is now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that he “can’t think of anything that would be more detrimental to Israel’s long-term survivability than to have something akin to the P5+1 make a decision on how Israel should cede territory in the future to a state that is possibly not viable.”
The experts at the hearing also discussed the threats Israel faces from Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian incitement, and consequent lone-wolf terrorism. Noting that “the same Europeans who call for tough love of the US towards Israel are not willing to administer that in their own relations with the Palestinians,” Makovsky argued that the United States should urge the European Union to use its leverage with the PA to persuade the Palestinians to stop sending funds to families of terrorists and to put an end to their anti-normalization policy towards Israel.