As Israel continues to be bogged down in swampy politics, things are at a halt on the diplomatic front. No foreign leaders are visiting Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not traveling to any international capitals, partly because of coronavirus.
But the most pressing issue is the application of Israeli law in the Jordan Valley and Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, based on the Trump map. The joint US-Israel committee tasked with mapping the areas in which Israeli law will be applied has held its first meeting, in which it agreed that the map attached to the "Vision of Peace" booklet was too general and must be redrawn. In effect, the Americans passed the ball to Israel, and expect us to be the ones to sit down at the drafting table, and they will respond at a later date.
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It's a complicated mission. The 800 kilometers (497 miles) of new line (both the Israelis and the Americans are careful not to call it a "border," because the Palestinian Authority is not defined as a state) are longer than Israel's existing land borders. Moreover, according to the principles laid out in the Trump peace plan, the line must include Israeli settlements that lie deep inside Judea and Samaria, and allow them direct access to the rest of the country, without going through Palestinian territory. On the other hand, Arab communities are not supposed to be included in Israeli territory. In short, the map will include a lot of protuberances and complicated curves, and will, therefore, take creativity and weeks of work to complete.
When Israel finishes the task, the map will be submitted to the Americans for consideration. That shouldn't take long, but after the US administration gives it the nod, things will get sensitive – it will have to be approved by both the White House and the Israeli government. This is where Israel's domestic political mess could do real damage to the nation, because it's important to the Americans that the map of Israeli sovereignty be approved by a government that holds a clear majority and has legitimacy in the eyes of the Knesset and the people.
Trump's joke about the strange Israeli election system that has led to election after election, was very serious. He and his staff can't understand the insanity of Israeli politicians, who prefer to drag their nation into a fourth round of elections in the space of a year and a half and lose out on diplomatic gifts of historic proportions rather than sit with each other in the same government.
It's not that America is politically stable, but at least they have clear winners. Thus far, the administration has not stated that the lack of an Israeli government would hold up the map's approval. Indeed, the chances are that the US administration would grudgingly agree to have it approved by a transitional government. Still, as long as there is no clear way ahead, the map is in doubt and Israel's image in the US has been damaged.
Sovereignty isn't the only thing that is being hurt by the ongoing political impasse in Israel, but also a matter that is virtually uncontested here - Iran. This week, IAEA head Rafael Grossi asked Iran to cooperate with IAEA people and publish clarifications about traces of uranium that were found at a number of Iranian sites where it should not have been.
As if that weren't enough, the IAEA reported on Election Day that Iran had enriched five times the amount of uranium it was allowed to under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. Grossi is pressing the international community to pressure Iran on this question, and this week met with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss it.
Ordinarily, Israeli leaders would be the first to speak up about the discoveries, especially Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's not hard to guess that if he hadn't been busy with political problems and the coronavirus outbreak, he would have called on European nations to withdraw from the deal. But Foreign Minister Israel Katz and the Foreign Ministry as a whole followed Netanyahu's lead and kept silent.
Brazil and Honduras are waiting
When it comes to countries moving their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem, much remains to be done. The leaders of the Congo and Serbia announced this week at the AIPAC conference that they were willing to open official economic missions in Jerusalem. These are important developments, but not enough.
Brazil and Honduras are a step away from opening embassies in Jerusalem, but there is no one in Israel to handle the matter. Honduras has been promised that if it opens an embassy in Jerusalem, Israel will open one in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. But that's all been held up because of the political crisis here. Even the Brazilians aren't been pressed to move ahead because of the political/diplomatic void in Israel. Like the other areas of government activity, diplomacy is at a standstill because of the lack of a functioning government.
