"An absolute building freeze would be such a painful but necessary compromise. It might also encourage residents of settlements deep in the West Bank to move to areas that will remain part of Israel, especially if the freeze were accompanied by financial inducements to relocate… [The Israeli government would lose] the excuse that any freeze would risk toppling a fragile coalition that relies on right-wingers who have threatened to withdraw in the event of another freeze. The new national unity government is now sufficiently large and diverse that it could now survive a walk-out by elements opposed to any freeze," – Alan Dershowitz, WSJ.
Beinart crows:
Good for Dersh. Post-Oslo, the real divide in organized American Jewry isn’t between people who say they support a Palestinian state and people who say they don’t, since most Jewish leaders now pay the concept lip service. The real divide is between people willing to ask Israel to do anything differently to keep the two state solution alive and people who won’t. With his op-ed, Dershowitz places himself, gingerly, on the other side of that divide from AIPAC.
May many follow.
The Dish 