Is Obama backing off on settlements?

George Mitchell held a quick press conference this afternoon, and he seemed to suggest Obama is backing off on his demand for a settlement freeze.

We are not identifying any issue as being a precondition or an impediment to negotiation. Neither the President, nor the Secretary, nor I have ever said of any one issue, that or any other, that it is a precondition to negotiations. What we have said is that we want to get into negotiations. We believe the suggestions that we've made and the requests that we've made would, if accepted and acted upon, create the most favorable conditions available to try to achieve success in those negotiations. But we do not believe in preconditions. We do not impose them. And we urge others not to impose preconditions.

Mitchell is correct in theory: The settlement freeze was always supposed to be a means, not an end. It's meaningless if it doesn't lead to a peace deal that addresses the so-called "final status" issues -- borders, refugees, Jerusalem, etc.

If Obama can get an agreement on final status issues without first securing a freeze, then the issue of settlement construction becomes moot. (If Israel and Palestine agree on final borders, Israel can't go on building illegal settlements.)

But after months of very publicly demanding a freeze, the reality is that the freeze has become a precondition for the Palestinians. I saw Saeb Erekat interviewed on Al-Jazeera this evening, and he again called for a full settlement freeze (with no exceptions for natural growth). Abbas is not going to talk about final status issues until Israel stops building new settlements.

It would look terrible for Obama to back off -- the "optics" would be awful, as Washington types like to say. Palestinians (and the Arab world in general) would view it as a betrayal, as Obama caving in to the Israelis. It would also derail any chance at final status negotiations in the near future.