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U.S. Pinning Its Mideast Hopes on 90-Day Settlement Freeze

(Washington Post-Christian Science Monitor) Glenn Kessler - When Israel agreed to a 10-month partial settlement freeze last year, U.S. officials said it was exactly what they needed to get talks with the Palestinians started. When the talks finally started in September - after the Palestinians balked at direct negotiations for nine months - U.S. officials again asserted that the sheer momentum of the talks would carry them past the end of the moratorium later that month. Yet the moratorium ended, and the talks flagged. Now, U.S. officials are taking another leap of faith - on a 90-day settlement freeze. The theory is that if the sides can establish the borders of a Palestinian state, and it is clear which settlements will become part of Israel, the issue of settlement expansion will fade in importance and the talks will keep going. But virtually no analyst believes an agreement on borders is possible in 90 days. Part of the problem is that Israel's main bargaining chip is land, and it would be required now to give up land without knowing precisely what it would get in return. "The question is whether Netanyahu and his coalition...are willing to sign an agreement that will effectively return Israel to the 1967 borders," Israeli political commentator Nahum Barnea wrote Monday in Yediot Ahronot. "Are they willing to do this even before the question of the right of return and the question of Jerusalem have been discussed?" Uzi Dayan, a former deputy chief of staff of the army, says a preliminary agreement on territorial concessions risks conceding Israel's territorial "strategic depth'' before reaching a full agreement. "It's like having a negotiation, and saying, 'First, give all your money, and then let's talk about the other issues.'''
2010-11-16 09:55:43
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