Bush’s sensible position on Israeli settlements?

Tue, 03 Jun 2003 19:07:00 -0400
/politics

This, from the Washington Post, is via another DeLong: “We need a better press corp” piece so it should probably be taken with a shaker of salt. However, even the implication that the US could force a deal on Israel involving abandoning the settlements surprised me.

The president has baffled some of his aides with comments they thought minimized the obstacles toward the two-state solution he talks about. For instance, the president has told aides that the Israelis are wasting their money on expanding settlements in the West Bank because ultimately those projects will become housing developments for Palestinians.
Some aides suggest this is a naive view of the settlement issue, noting that experts on both sides of the issue believe unchecked expansion of the settlements would make it impossible to create a viable Palestinian state. Other Bush advisers say the president’s comments simply reflected his determination to create a Palestinian state.