7 Things Obama Could Give Israel To Make It Willingly Freeze Settlements

In his post on the Encyclopaedia Britannica blog, Professor Mitchell Bard writes that if Obama is serious about the settlement freeze, he should use incentives instead of pressure. Briefly, here are the 7 suggestions Prof. Bard offers:

1) Set a deadline for eliminating Iran's nuclear facilities. If the U.S. takes out Iran's capability, then Israel has no more existential threat to worry about and does not have to take risks to do the job itself.

2) Sign a formal defense treaty with Israel.

3) Admit Israel to NATO.

4) Offer a generous compensation package to relocate settlers inside Israel.

5) Pressure the Arabs to purchase the land from the settlers.

6) Provide Israel with a large number of Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.

7) Finance the Red-Dead water project, which involves building a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

Read the details.

Of course, no one can seriously expect this to happen.

For Obama to offer a real incentive to Israel might ease Israel-US tensions, but would upset the Arabs--and upsetting Obama's plan to strengthen US-Arab relations.

But it does make a swell wishlist.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Obama and Settlements.