Obama in Cairo

I was greatly encouraged to hear President Obama firmly oppose Israel’s reckless settlement expansion program. As settlement buildings, infrastructure, and residents continue to carve up the West Bank into an unintelligible patchwork of regions and municipalities, the prospects for peace in the region grow bleaker and bleaker. Any talk of a ‘two-state solution’ to the conflict – an eventual outcome rightly supported by the President – will require the allotment of sovereign territory to the Palestinians. Logically speaking, such a territory would include the West Bank, with Ramallah as its capital. The Israeli settlements, however, make such a realization well near impossible.