Advice to Bibi on Settlements: A Dissent

This from Robert Satloff, the high priest of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

Goldblog's usual diplomatic prescience notwithstanding, I have to disagree with your advice to Bibi Netanyahu. There may very well come at time when, for the attraction of a real, lasting and secure peace agreement, Bibi would be wise to break apart his current coalition for one with Kadima, but it is probably not wise to do it to satisfy a short-sighted fixation by the Obama administration to be the first in history to have made the pursuit of peace contingent on a settlement freeze. Let us remember that, ultimately, Israel will be asked to pay in irretrievable concessions for the secure peace that its partners say they promise. The Palestinian's Woody Allen argument that they should be compensated just for showing up for negotiations that are designed, in the end, to provide them with major territorial concessions, the end of Israeli occupation and the creation of an independent state is, on the face of it, more than a bit odd.