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Israel: Palestinian Violence, Not Settlements, Are Main Threat to Peace
(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Forget unrelenting terrorism, the Hamas-Fatah split, and the consistent Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the national home of the Jews. According to a pre-summit paper published on Thursday by the French Foreign Ministry to explain the French initiative, settlement activity is the main threat to a two-state solution. Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold said in response that what has disrupted the peace process more than any other factor since the 1993 Oslo Accords has been the "breakdown of security due to the Palestinian adoption of violence against Israel." Citing the suicide bombings, the rockets from Gaza, and the current wave of knife attacks, Gold said that "to ignore this recent history and focus on Israeli settlements is to completely distort what is going on in the Middle East." The French document did not include a word regarding any Palestinian culpability for the current diplomatic logjam and seemed to revitalize the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was at the core of instability in the Middle East.