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The Settlement Freeze Fallacy

[Washington Post] Elliott Abrams - Will Israel's new government face American demands for a settlement freeze? If so, we are headed for a needless confrontation with the Netanyahu cabinet. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live beyond the "green line." Those settlements exist, and there is no point in debating whether it was right to build them. President Bush largely resolved the issue of the major settlement blocs in a 2004 letter to Sharon. He stated a truth that Palestinians have come to recognize: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." Most settlement activity is in those major blocs that it is widely understood Israel will keep. Those settlements are becoming more populated, not geographically larger. Most settlement expansion occurs in ways that do not much affect Palestinian life. Settlement activity is not diminishing the territory of a future Palestinian entity. In fact, the emphasis on a "settlement freeze" draws attention from the progress that's needed to lay the foundation for full Palestinian self-rule - building a thriving economy and fighting terrorism through reliable security forces. The demand for a freeze would have only one quick effect: to create immediate tension between the U.S. and Israel's new government. That may be precisely why some propose it, but it is also why the Obama administration should reject it. The writer, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, was the deputy national security adviser overseeing Near East and North African affairs in the George W. Bush administration.
2009-04-08 06:00:00
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