Yossi Klein Halevi
10/14/2010

Halevi considers Israeli Defense Minister Barak’s attempt to persuade the Netanyahu government to extend a freeze on settlement building. For all the ambivalence toward the settlements, Halevi says there is good reason why the Israeli government should heed Defense Minister Barak’s advice and extend a settlement freeze. A freeze would prove that the obstacle to Middle East agreement isn’t the settlements–blueprints exist for resolving the settlement issue in a comprehensive peace agreement–but eather the more basic refusal of the Palestinian leadership to accept the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty over any part of the land.

Halevi is a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a contributing editor of the New Republic.

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