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Settlements and the English language

Newsweek has details on how a Republican pollster in the United States is helping The Israel Project sell Americans on Israeli settlements.

How do you sell the American public on the idea that Israel has the right to maintain or even expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank? Be positive. Turn the issue away from settlements and toward peace. Invoke ethnic cleansing.

Obviously, rumors of the Israel lobby's demise are greatly exaggerated.

But I actually think Luntz's verbal gymnastics are a symptom of a larger problem: Public discussion about the settlements -- in government, in the media -- is horribly muddled.

B'Tselem: Settlements occupy 42 percent of West Bank

Ben-Eliezer makes "secret trip" to Turkey: Israeli TV

CENTCOM talking sense on Hamas and Hizballah

Al-Akhbar: Our weekly brief

Peace Processing

Talking about direct talks: Netanyahu returns to the White House

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivering a statement in Jerusalem on July 1, 2010. (Photo: AFP)
US president Barack Obama will use a White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for an extended West Bank settlement freeze. If Netanyahu doesn't offer one - and the domestic politics are quite difficult for him - it's hard to see any possibility of direct talks with the Palestinian Authority later this year.

The Afghan Surge

Obama's southern strategy

Gen. David Petraeus testifying on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Reuters)
The president's decision to nominate Gen. David Petraeus as the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan won't mean a major change in strategy. But there are mounting reasons for pessimism about current policy, particularly the relentless focus on southern Afghanistan. The deployment of tens of thousands of additional troops to Kandahar and Helmand serves few NATO objectives.

Freedom Flotilla Killings

Anticlimax: How much did the flotilla raid really change regional politics?

A demonstration in London against the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla. (Photo: AFP)
It has accelerated Israel's isolation from several of its neighbors and allies; it has sharpened divisions within Turkish domestic politics; it has deepened perceptions that the Obama administration as too close to Israel. And it seems to have had a remarkably minor impact on Palestinian domestic politics.