Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced at the cabinet meeting yesterday that Israel will not build any new settlements in the territories, will stop expropriating land, and will dismantle illegal outposts, all according to the state's commitments in the first stage of the Road Map.
About time. They've said they'd do it for years, they should have done it even before then, and they still may not do it now. But at least now, the Prime Minister is saying that he will halt any new settlement expansion in the West Bank as a condition of the road map. Settlement construction has been one of the few areas of Israeli policy where Americans have given Israel an unwarranted free pass. The settlements certainly have not been the cause of Palestinian terrorism, but as a friend once said to me, "They're not helping." This is especially the case because according to Israeli government data, 32% of West Bank settlements are built on private Palestinian land. This is appalling. It's good to see the Israelis coming to grips with the fact that they can't maintain their current settler policy. While completely removing the IDF from Gaza may not have been wise in retrospect, evicting the settlers was a painful but necessary measure. There will likewise be other necessarily painful measures Israel must take in dealing with West Bank settlers. Hopefully Olmert will not go back on his word.
As for the Palestinians, their mammoth failures in meeting the Road Map conditions are too well-documented to even begin here. We'll save it for another time.
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