Israeli soldiers run during a Palestinian protest over a US decision on Jewish settlements, in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on December 9, 2019. Mussa Qawasma/Reuters

2020 Democrats have signaled they’re willing to punish Israel over controversial issues such as Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

If a Democrat is elected next year, it could mean the US finally adopts a policy toward Israel with financial repercussions on the expansion of settlements, which are viewed as illegal under international law.

Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, told Insider: „Engaging in Israel-Palestine peace efforts will necessitate bringing pressure, real pressure, real consequences, for both sides — Israel and Palestine — when their leadership takes steps to undermine a peace agreement.“

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For decades, undying support for Israel has been among the few issues with bipartisan backing in Washington, and it’s long been taboo — and potential political suicide — for US politicians to criticize Israel on any level.

But Democrats have begun to shift on this in recent years, with progressive, rising stars in the party and presidential candidates increasingly speaking out in support of Palestinian rights. And if a Democrat is elected in 2020, it could spell the end of US tolerance for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and expansion of settlements.

A number of the top contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have signaled they’re open to placing conditions on US aid to Israel in relation to the occupation, settlements, and peace process.

Even as recently as under Obama, the US was reluctant to openly condemn Israeli settlements

Israel seized the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a 1967 war, and continues to occupy the former while imposing a blockade on the latter. Since the occupation began in 1967 and under support of the Israeli government, groups of Israelis have been moving into the West Bank and establishing or living in communities popularly referred to as settlements.

Today, 400,000 Israeli settlers and 2.8 million Palestinians live in the West Bank. The occupation and Israeli settlements have for years been among the most contentious foreign policy topics.

In a major diplomatic rebuke of Israel, the Obama administration in 2016 declined to veto a landmark resolution in the UN Security Council that demanded a halt to all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The US abstained from a vote on the resolution, which described the settlements as a „flagrant violation“ of international law, and it passed in a 14-0 vote.

But the Obama administration was still heavily supportive of Israel, and former President Barack Obama signed off on a massive, historic military aid package to the country ($38 billion over 10 years) shortly before leaving office.

President Barack Obama listens as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Trump has taken the US in an extreme direction when it comes to Israel

Under President Donald Trump, the US has moved in an extreme direction with regard to Israel. Trump has disregarded decades of precedent with actions such as moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. These moves have been widely characterized as detrimental to the US government’s long-stated goal of a two-state solution to the convoluted Israel-Palestine conflict.

More recently, the Trump administration in mid-November announced another major break from decades of US policy toward Israel, stating that it no longer view Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as „inconsistent with international law.“

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ally of Trump, welcomed the move with open arms as it essentially meant the US government was giving a thumbs up to his pledge to expand settlements and annex all of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister said in a statement that the US has „adopted an important policy that rights a historical wrong“ and „reflects an historical truth.“

Meanwhile, Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the Trump administration’s behavior „poses a threat to global stability, security, and peace.“

President Donald Trump smiles at Israel\'s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they deliver statements at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 25, 2019. Carlos Barria/Reuters

Most presidents have done very little to punish Israel on the settlements issue and occupation

Aaron David Miller, a veteran diplomat who advised multiple secretaries of state on the Middle East, and Daniel Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt, in an op-ed for The Washington Post said the announcement on the settlements „further compromised, if not killed, Washington’s credibility and its role as an honest broker in any conceivable peace deal for the remainder of this presidency.“

But though they decried the Trump administration’s decision, and portrayed it as the president isolating the US from the international community and surrendering any chance of brokering a Middle East peace deal, Miller and Kurtzer also said it would be wrong to pretend the US has ever done anything substantive to prevent the Israel settlements.

„The de facto approach of US administrations over the course of four decades to acquiesce to, even enable, the Israeli settlement enterprise; to be silent on the issue of legality; and to fail to impose a penalty that could limit or discourage Israel’s settlement policies,“ Miller and Kurtzer wrote, adding that they watched this happen over their decades of service as US diplomats under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Miller and Kurtzer said the only major exception to the US government’s tacit acceptance of Israeli settlements was during the George HW Bush administration, „when Washington refused for a year to extend $10 billion in housing loan guarantees for absorption of Soviet Jews because of Israeli settlement expansion.“

Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Sanders, echoed this view in a recent phone conversation with Insider.

„The fact of the matter is the settlements have been proceeding for almost 50 years. They’ve accelerated, certainly, under Netanyahu and they will accelerate even more now that the Trump administration has made clear that they don’t see them as illegal,“ Duss said.

Duss went on to say that the impact of the US taking this position is „more than symbolic, it’s already created increased political mobilization on the part of pro-settlement forces in Israel.“ He added: „Even though past administrations have all been clear that settlements are a problem, they did very little…to create consequences.“

„Engaging in Israel-Palestine peace efforts will necessitate bringing pressure, real pressure, real consequences, for both sides — Israel and Palestine — when their leadership takes steps to undermine a peace agreement,“ Duss said, going on to note that multiple 2020 Democrats have taken up the issue of „conditioning aid to Israel on the peace process related to the occupation and ending the occupation.“

Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a campaign town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S., November 24, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder Reuters

2020 Democrats are willing to adopt a US-Israel policy that actually has teeth

Sanders, who is Jewish and briefly lived in Israel during the 1960s, has been an unabashed critic of Netanyahu (whose government he’s referred to as „racist“) and is the most vocal proponent of a shift is US policy toward Israel among 2020 Democrats.

Duss emphasized that Sanders‘ position is not simply about criticizing Israel, as some right-wing critics have sought to portray it, but „getting to a point that supports the security and dignity of all the people in Israel and Palestine“

Though the Vermont senator is an independent, he has in some ways been a bellwether for the Democratic party’s changing views on the US-Israel relationship. After Sanders during a 2016 presidential debate criticized Israel for the use of „disproportionate“ force in Gaza and called on the US to stop being so „one-sided,“ onlookers in the media said he was taking a „sledgehammer to the political status quo on Israel“ and „shattered an American taboo on Israel.“

Sanders has built on these sentiments along the campaign trail as he once again vies for the Democratic presidential nomination. In late October, he said: „My solution is to say to Israel: ‚You get $3.8 billion every year. If you want military aid, you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza.‘ In fact, I think it is fair to say that some of that should go right now into humanitarian aid.“

Similarly, Buttigieg has signaled to Netanyahu that under his presidency the US wouldn’t support Israel’s annexation of the West Bank through the expansion of settlements — and that there could be financial penalties if things don’t change. „He should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to make sure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill,“ Buttigieg said of Netanyahu in June.

Warren appears to be in agreement with this approach. In late October, when asked if she’d make US aid conditional on a freeze of settlement building, the Massachusetts senator said „everything is on the table.“

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren: „It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.“ pic.twitter.com/GjumaLoZ9k

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is currently leading in national polls for the 2020 nomination, has joined other 2020 Democrats in condemning Trump for changing US policy on the settlements. But he’s not on the same page when it comes to conditioning aid, a proposal that in recent weeks the former vice president has referred to as „bizarre“ and „outrageous.“

But if elected, Biden could find himself at odds with a Democratic electorate that is increasingly progressive and uneasy about the nature of the US-Israel relationship.

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