The settlement obsession

Elliott Abrams

Foreign Affairs

In the end, Israel will withdraw from most of the West Bank and remain only in the major blocs where hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live. Israelis will live in a democratic state where Jews are the majority, and Palestinians will live in a state — democratic, one hopes — with an Arab Muslim majority. The remaining questions are how quickly or slowly that end will be reached and how to get there with minimal violence. Despite the view adopted by the Obama administration that all settlements are illegitimate and that construction activity in the settlements is the main obstacle to a peace deal, the facts are otherwise. The contours of a territorial compromise are visible; the settlements beyond Israel’s security barrier obviously have no future. Far more difficult complications exist as to Jerusalem, the status of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and workable security arrangements — all problems that exist independently of the settlements and would be murderously complex even if no single settlement had ever been built.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67943/elliott-abrams/the-settlement-obsession?page=show