Is Obama Downplaying Settlements?

My Administration has worked with the parties and the international community for over two years to end this conflict, yet expectations have gone unmet. Israeli settlement activity continues. Palestinians have walked away from talks.
Obama, in his Middle East speech

And that's it.--no other mention of a settlement freeze.


So Obama mentions the settlements once, in passing, to let Abbas he has not forgotten.

But by the same token, it could be an acknowledgement that he has played up the idea of a settlement freeze for months on end--to the extent that for the first time, Abbas added a settlement freeze to his wish list.

Of course, this doesn't mean that at some point Obama wouldn't bring up the point again, but for now Obama seems to have quietly taken it off the table as a precondition.

The problem is that Abbas probably won't let Obama get off that easily. He can only insist on putting the issue back on the agenda before sitting down with Netanyahu.

So maybe all it means is that Obama wants to focus on using the 1948 armistice line as a border.
He can always go back to harping on the settlements another time.

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