Barak on Maale Adumim settlement

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, has an op-ed in the Guardian today.

They should also accept the demographic realities. This is why a partial bureaucratic approval of an old construction plan in the city of Maale Adumim, adjacent to Jerusalem, should not be perceived as a danger to the peace process. All the diplomatic pressure on Israel, in this specific case, is not justified, simply because the Palestinians have already agreed this major bloc will stay under Israel's authority - if not at Camp David, in many other exchanges of ideas. While the construction plan is far from being implemented on the ground, threats by Saeb Erekat (or Abbas) that its authorisation "closes the door to peace" takes us back to a gloomy period where short-term political gains are put before long-term benefits.

No Israeli government can, should or needs to remove the major settlement blocs. These are where almost 80% of the settlers live in an area of no more than 6% of the total land area of the West Bank. This understanding should ease the recent tension between the sides, especially as the Maale Adumim plan specifically does not interfere with any unsolvable territorial contiguity issues.