In the Wizard of Oz, a house came out of nowhere and killed the Wicked Witch of the East. Apparently, truth is stranger than fiction, because houses in Israel are now killing people all over the place. See, the "underlying cause" of all the deaths in Israel, according to terrorist spokespersonPalestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, is Israeli settlements. One might think the cause of violence is people who commit violence. But those wacky Palestinians know better.
There are currently two opportunities to save prospects for a two-state solution. First, the quartet must make a full and internationally monitored settlement freeze the top priority. Without such a freeze, ongoing settlement construction will only provoke more hostility and undermine any attempts to stop violence.Get that? First Israel should stop building those evil killing machine-houses. Then we can have attempts to stop violence. No guarantees on whether those "attempts" will succeed, of course, as we can see...
Second, elections next month give Israelis the opportunity to send a message to Palestinians. By electing a leadership committed to evacuating settlements rather than building them, to ending the occupation rather than intensifying it, Israelis can undermine the Palestinian extremists and help bring an end to the horrors of the past two years.So it's up to the Israelis to pacify -- to "undermine" -- Palestinian extremists. (Note that he doesn't bother to talk about Palestinian elections, presumably because he knows how silly that concept is.) He doesn't suggest that Palestinians "undermine" Israeli extremists by ceasing to blow up buses and supermarkets and the like. Israel apparently has to handle all sides of the peace "process," while Palestinians can just sit around twiddling their thumbs.