At a time when the Obama administration is seeking a way to impose a construction freeze in the settlements that will be acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians, in order to pave the way for the resumption of the political process, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking common ground with the settlers.
According to the minutes distributed by the Prime Minister's Office after Netanyahu's meeting with the heads of the Yesha Council of settlements last month, the prime minister stated that, "We are all interested in the same thing," and then added, "But we must act wisely."
In addition to the calming words the settlers heard from Netanyahu comes the testimony of Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled, who accompanied the prime minister on his recent trip to Berlin. Peled reassured the audience at the right-wing rally by telling them, "There are no agreements on the freezing of construction in the settlements."
The document that was reported on by Haaretz's Chaim Levinson extensively quotes the settlers' demands for a renewal of building in the West Bank and for an end to the threat of the removal of the outposts.
The good news implied in these demands is that the Finance Ministry and other government ministries have stopped encouraging construction beyond the Green Line. The settlers complained that the right-wing government headed by Netanyahu is treating them rougher than its predecessor, headed by Ehud Olmert, when it comes to granting building permits and development budgets.
The bad news is that Netanyahu did not repeat for their benefit the important statements supporting a two-state solution that he made in his Bar-Ilan speech.
There is no magic spell to clear the way to an agreement with the Palestinians based on a partition of the land that will also satisfy the ideological leadership of the right. If Netanyahu is committed to a "two states for two peoples" solution, clearly he and the Yesha Council are not "interested in the same thing."
If the prime minister really wants to resume talks with the Palestinians, he must tell the settlers boldly that negotiations on the future of the occupied territories are not reconcilable with creating facts in those territories.
We can only hope that when the prime minister spoke of the necessity to "act wisely" he was not hinting at an intention of abusing the effort by the American president to find a compromise on the settlement issue or of evading his commitments to freeze construction over the Green Line and to remove the outposts.
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