The Jerusalem Post reports that Gideon Saar, No. 2 in Netanyahu’s Likud party, took Israeli lawmakers on a tour in the West Bank today that included a ceremony unveiling the cornerstone of a new neighborhood in the West Bank settlement of Moshav Gitit. On the tour – “intended to send a message” to Kerry that “settlements must remain” – he reiterated the Israeli right’s insistence that any peace agreement include Israeli control of the valley.
“The [Israeli] military presence in the Jordan Valley needs to continue for generations, but it cannot continue without Jewish settlement. Wherever there are no Israeli towns, there is no army, and where there is no army, there is terrorism,” Mr. Saar said at the ceremony.
The Times of Israel notes that there are 21 Jewish settlements in the Jordan Valley, the first built less than a year after the 1967 war, in which Israel captured the West Bank. According to settler leaders, there are 7,000 Jews living in the area now, although other estimates say it is closer to 4,000.
Beyond concrete issues like borders there are deeper questions critical to the outcome of the talks, such as whether or not a peace deal must reconcile conflicting versions of the past, or whether it can allow each version some legitimacy and focus on paving a path forward.