Settlements, after all, are a final status issue. What is the administration doing sticking their head into it?
The President had built credibility by finally taking a stand on settlements while not overstepping into the realm of final status. By calling for a freeze, rather than an evacuation, the fate of the settlements is left to negotiation. Hope for the settlers that the issue would at least be decided in part by their own governments was preserved. Besides minor skirmishes, the ‘freeze’ Obama did not tear Israel into two – far from it in fact. On the Palestinian side, the freeze was not a ‘victory’. Instead it was a hint that maybe, just maybe, they would walk into a negotiation, rather than crawl into a pummeling.
