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Israel/Palestine
Showing Original Post only (View all)Settlements are not the great obstacle to Mid-East peace [View all]
COLIN RUBENSTEIN
From: The Australian
December 20, 2012 12:00AM
CLAIMS that Israeli settlement building has made a two-state outcome impossible are completely untrue. Settlements are only one of many contentious issues that must be addressed - along with water, Jerusalem, refugees and security arrangements - and far from the most difficult to resolve.
Israeli policies since 2004 - after the George W. Bush-Ariel Sharon agreement - have prevented any new settlements or the expansion of the boundaries of existing settlements. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent announcements are consistent with those policies.
It is also not true that any current or likely future settlement growth will substantially affect the size, contiguity or viability of a future Palestinian state. Settlements currently take up less than 2 per cent of the West Bank.
Further, the broad outline of how to resolve the settlement issue in a final peace deal has been largely agreed in past Israeli-Palestinian negotiations: Israel will retain major settlement blocs, containing a large majority of settlers, in exchange for land swaps of territory inside Israel's pre-1967 borders and evacuate the rest. Israel has demonstrated it has the will and ability to do this - evacuating some West Bank and all Gaza settlements in 2005. Palestinian negotiators have accepted this idea in principle.
While one may question the timing or wisdom of Netanyahu's recent decision to allow planning to move forward for more Jewish housing in east Jerusalem and the area known as E1 in the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'ale Adumim -as even many Israelis do - the proposition that they make a two-state outcome impossible is ludicrous.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/settlements-are-not-the-great-obstacle-to-mid-east-peace/story-e6frgd0x-1226540680879
From: The Australian
December 20, 2012 12:00AM
CLAIMS that Israeli settlement building has made a two-state outcome impossible are completely untrue. Settlements are only one of many contentious issues that must be addressed - along with water, Jerusalem, refugees and security arrangements - and far from the most difficult to resolve.
Israeli policies since 2004 - after the George W. Bush-Ariel Sharon agreement - have prevented any new settlements or the expansion of the boundaries of existing settlements. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent announcements are consistent with those policies.
It is also not true that any current or likely future settlement growth will substantially affect the size, contiguity or viability of a future Palestinian state. Settlements currently take up less than 2 per cent of the West Bank.
Further, the broad outline of how to resolve the settlement issue in a final peace deal has been largely agreed in past Israeli-Palestinian negotiations: Israel will retain major settlement blocs, containing a large majority of settlers, in exchange for land swaps of territory inside Israel's pre-1967 borders and evacuate the rest. Israel has demonstrated it has the will and ability to do this - evacuating some West Bank and all Gaza settlements in 2005. Palestinian negotiators have accepted this idea in principle.
While one may question the timing or wisdom of Netanyahu's recent decision to allow planning to move forward for more Jewish housing in east Jerusalem and the area known as E1 in the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'ale Adumim -as even many Israelis do - the proposition that they make a two-state outcome impossible is ludicrous.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/settlements-are-not-the-great-obstacle-to-mid-east-peace/story-e6frgd0x-1226540680879
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The bulldozing actually is a good thing--it allows for the space to be planned
geek tragedy
Dec 2012
#4
Exactly right. The settlements in Gaza did not fit the needs of the Palestinian community. The PA
Dick Dastardly
Dec 2012
#7
It was by agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that the homes would be bulldozed
Dick Dastardly
Dec 2012
#24
ah yeah right that was why it 's called Israel's UNILATERAL disengagement Plan
azurnoir
Dec 2012
#26