NYTimes Demands 'Courage'

In today's New York Times' editorial, Shortsighted Thinking on Israeli Settlements, the paper's editorial board (Andrew Rosenthal, Editor, @andyrNYT;  Terry Tang, Deputy Editorial Page Editor; Robert B. Semple Jr., Associate Editor; David Firestone, Projects Editor, National Politics, the White House and Congress @fstonenyt; Vikas Bajaj, Business, International Economics, @vikasbajaj; Philip M. Boffey, Science; Lawrence Downes, Immigration, Veterans Issues; Carol Giacomo, Foreign Affairs, @giacomonyt; Verlyn Klinkenborg, Agriculture, Environment, Culture; Juliet Lapidos, Staff Editor, @julietlapidos; Eleanor Randolph, New York State, Northeast Region, Media, @EleanorRandolph; Dorothy Samuels, Law, Civil Rights, National Affairs; Brent Staples, Education, Criminal Justice, Economics; Teresa Tritch, Economic Issues, Tax Policy; David C. Unger, Foreign Affairs; Jesse Wegman, The Supreme Court, Legal Affairs, @jessewegman, although I'm guessing Tom Friedman contributed to this leader) takes on one of its 'favorite subjects' - the denial of Jews their legal, historical, natural and religious/cultural/national right to reside in its homeland.


Excerpts:

....in the broader world beyond Israeli domestic politics, giving the green light to more settlement construction in contested territory is not just untimely but a fresh cause for pessimism about the prospects for successful peace negotiations.

Why can't we term Arab residency locations is Israel "settlements" and equalize the entire situation?  Why do Arabs have no problem, even as "Palestinians", to live and construct in Israel, in Judea and Samaria and Gaza and, as well, in Jordan, part of the original Mandate for Palestine, but Jews are criminalized?  'No Jews in Palestine' is the real apartheid here and the undermining of coexistence.

In any conceivable agreement, at least some West Bank settlements will have to be uprooted. And East Jerusalem is where Palestinians hope to locate the capital of their eventual state.

I think we should first deal with Temple Denial and with Jerusalem Denial before we go any further in territorial compromise.  Not only does the land have a security value of inestimable magnitude but also a critical element of Jewish national ethos.

Why further complicate these already complicated negotiations three days before they start? 

Why not?  Should we yield and surrender and then, like after the Gaza Disengagement find out we've been shafted?

...no two-state solution can ever be reached if Israel expands its settlements on territory that will eventually become part of a Palestinian state. 

Er, if you take Jordan into consideration, the Medad Fraction Principle, it can be reached.

It also unhelpfully embarrasses Mr. Abbas, whose good faith now appears to have been abused and who may now find it harder to sell difficult-but-necessary compromises to his people.

"Good faith"?!  After getting terrorist prisoners who murdered released?

Mr. Netanyahu can show his [courage] by freezing the construction bids before any actual building begins.

"Freezing" was tried already.  That's not courage, but stupidity if repeated.


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P.S.  State Dep't spox deals with the media.
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