Netanyahu Offers Settlement Freeze
The New York Times reports:
JERUSALEM — An offer on Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to freeze West Bank Jewish settlements in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state — instantly rejected by the Palestinians — was the latest complex maneuver engendering debate about his intentions.
The offer, made in a speech at the opening of the fall session of Parliament, was aimed either at keeping talks with the Palestinians alive and his right-wing coalition partners in check, or at seeking to shift the burden of failure to the Palestinians and escape blame should the talks wither and die.
As part of a flurry of initiatives favored by Israel’s right that began Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu backed a measure that requires non-Jewish immigrants to take a loyalty oath to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state before they can become citizens. On Monday his government supported a bill that would require a national referendum before any territory could be yielded in a peace deal.
“The last few days clearly are disturbing as to which direction all this is going,” Isaac Herzog, Israel’s welfare minister, who is from the Labor Party, said in a telephone interview. “It may all be in preparation for the big peace step, or it may be a political maneuver to regain control of the right.”
Mr. Netanyahu is facing particular competition on the right from his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has made a loyalty oath for Arabs a central part of his political appeal to Jewish supporters and said there will be no peace with the Palestinians for at least a generation.
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