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Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246296529935&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
What a Settlement Freeze Would Do
[Jerusalem Post] Editorial - Barack Obama might want to reflect on how his push for a freeze is being seen among mainstream Israelis - those who want a peace deal. They wonder why there is no withering campaign to pressure Abbas into insisting that a Fatah-Hamas unity government explicitly accept the Quartet's principles. Netanyahu articulated the consensus position of the Israeli body politic: "Palestine" must be demilitarized so that we don't wake up to find Iranian Revolutionary Guards overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport; that in a region which includes two dozen Muslim states, the Palestinians need to give up the "right of return" and accept Israel as the Jewish state; that Israel cannot agree to pull back to the hard-to-defend 1949 Armistice Lines. Would a temporary settlement freeze bring us any closer to peace? More likely, it would encourage the Palestinians to dig in their heels.