'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

'Rumors' of settlement freeze just that

Steve Clemons blogged this morning that,

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be using his skills as a crafty political executive to sidestep some of his more bureaucratic and recalcitrant allies in cooking up a deal with George Mitchell and Barack Obama on settlements.

Not so fast, Steve.

Richard Silverstein has an excellent commentary on the latest spate of rumors about some kind of a Mitchell-Netanyahu deal on settlements.

He quotes an Israeli friend as noting that the word used in Hebrew to describe what the Israeli government is contemplating is hamtana, meaning "waiting"-- or, as Richard comments, maybe more like "the pause that refreshes."

Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Attias (Shas) is reported as saying "There is no freeze"-- but there is some hamtana.

For its part, the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department has said that,

the terms so far made public fail to comply with Israel’s obligation to implement a comprehensive and immediate freeze on all settlement activities as stipulated in the 2001 Mitchell Report and the 2003 Road Map.

The PLO-NAD also points to a report in the Israeli business press as saying that,

the Israeli department of government properties is expected to invite tenders for a bid to build 450 residential units in Pisgat Ze’ev, a neighborhood on the Palestinian side of the 1967 borders in internationally recognized East Jerusalem.

The magazine’s Wednesday edition said the department was relaxing some of its earlier requirements for bid so the project can get going in the next six months.

So altogether, it looks as though the settlement freeze is (a) not going into operation in any meaningful way, but is (b) being "played with" by Netanyahu in his interactions with the Americans, just as Efraim Inbar predicted would happen...