Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Saturday:
Settlements are not the reason that the peace process is failing, they were never an obstacle, not at any stage. Even when Israel pulled out of [Palestinian] territory, the terror continued. Even when we uprooted [Jewish] communities, we got ‘Hamastan.’ That is why I propose that we think about it – not in slogans and not with decrees.
Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz that Israel is sleep-walking to disaster:
Barack Obama has made Israel an offer it cannot – and must not – refuse, yet Israel fails to wake up. Where are those 57 percent of Israelis who said in the latest Haaretz poll that they support a two-state solution? What do they think? That this solution, which they allegedly support, will fall from the sky, without lifting a finger, without making waves among the depths of society, waves that will put such a grandiose process in motion? Where are the protests against the anti-peace position of our elected prime minister, who continues with his hackneyed we-will-not-divide-Jerusalem and we-will-not-come-down-from-the-Golan?