A few readers asked to see a map of the West Bank and the settlements.
The best up to date information on the settlements is at the Americans for Peace Now website. They are the experts on the settlement issue (truth in advertising--I am an officer of APN in the US). Here is the link. www.peacenow.org
go to the focus on settlements page. there are maps, updates, photos of 'natural growth,' which is not natural at all, but expansion and building into a future Palestinian state.

As events continue to build in Iran, so do the settlers outside of Israel's Green line, the internationally recognized border between Israel and the Palestinian areas. The settlers are not feeling threatened by the Obama Administration nor by Bibi Netanyahu's speech. That is because they are so entrenched in the Israeli political establishment, especially now with the right wing government. And, Bibi's speech last weekend did nothing to dissuade them.

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Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had a choice: President Obama or Benny Begin. He chose Benny Begin, the right wing member of Bibi's Likud Party. Rather than joining the international consensus and leading Israel to peace, the Israeli PM chose to stay trapped in his old ideology, treading water. The timid acknowledgement that he gave to a two-state solution is useless. It is a non-starter and he knows it. The question is, what next?

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A quick post to respond to Josh and to some of the others who commented on my settlements' post and Friday's poll. The important thing to remember is that the Israeli public has never dropped below a majority of support for leaving the settlements; what that means ultimately is up to a political solution and a political leadership in Israel--along with a viable Palestinian leadership and US support to turn the majority into a politically viable reality.

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Every Friday, the Israeli papers publish a national poll catching a snapshot of the public's mood. This week's poll is unequivocal in showing major public support for an end to the settlement foolery. This gives Bibi Netanyahu the political cover he needs, if he wants to transform, but as the Friday commentators also point out in the Israeli papers, whether his own personality and personal history trap him in the paradigm of the past is the question of the moment....as one top Israeli commentator says, if he doesn't respond to Obama's program, the current government is on a collision course that puts it on a trajectory for toppling and soon....the right politician in Israel (with help from Israel's friends) can capture the current mood and make progress --Here is the poll:

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President Obama didn't disappoint all those in the Middle East and America who care about enlightened progress. He continued with his relentless push to end Israeli settlement activity and he spoke as an American leader reaching out to the Arab world that can be, to a Middle East that can be.

As one of Israel's Knesset members, Haim Oron of Meretz, put it: "The speech was the feat of enlightenment." For Israel, this is precisely the choice--will it be a country of the 21st century or a country of the shtetl?

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Here's a headline you don't see everyday: Netanyahu Supports Evacuating Settlement Outposts by Force if Necessary. It's from today's Yediot Achranot, Israel's mass circulation daily. Bibi is taking this minor step in response to his U.S. visit and he's got the perfect person to do the dirty work: Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, the leader of the lost and forlorn Labor Party.

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I got a reminder in my inbox today about the other face of Israel, not the face of Bibi or Lieberman or the ultra-Orthodox or the settlers. Although, the press release did come from the NY Consulate which falls within the Avigdor Lieberman's Foreign Ministry.
The headline reads:
Just in Time for LGBT Month,
International Gay Icon Comes to New York
and it promotes the upcoming concert by Israeli rock star, Ivri Lider at the very hip Webster Hall in NYC's East Village.

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I want to commend my friend and tpm colleague Bernie Avishai for his post re Jeff Goldberg. I had to check twice when I read Jeff's piece in yesterday's NYT for the byline-that it wasn't signed by Uzi Arad, one of his top security advisors and a man with a well-known hawkish position re Iran and Israel's place in the Arab world.

There is a fight for Bibi's soul. The old Likudnik way of doing things--translated as force works--is up for grabs. And there are several key components out there that never existed before. Here they are:

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Tonight, Israel celebrates its 61st Independence Day. As usual, the country's commentators are offering mixed reviews, filled with angst and back-patting, celebration and worry. But, today I had the privilege of an unexpected 'Yom Hatzmaut' commemoration of my own, as an Israeli friend of mine was honored by Survivor Corps, an NGO that works with people who have been hit by land mines, torture, war and genocide.

My heroic friend, Nomika Tzion, lives in an urban kibbutz that she helped create, in the rocket-ravaged poor city of Sderot, just three miles or so from the Gaza border.

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I had planned to write a post this week about American exceptionalism and European social democracy, but I confess, I got side tracked reading about Michelle Obama's fashions on display this week and reading less about the debates between the American and European models. This is not a bad thing.

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The new Israeli government is the largest in Israel's history and the largest of its kind in the world, according to Israeli media reports. Another enviable number--54% of the Israeli public already hold it in negative esteem and this is on the day of its swearing in, today.

That's the good news. The bad news is that even due to its internal contradictions, it is unlikely to collapse quickly because this is a government about self-preservation, and not much else. The only pressure it will feel--and it will feel it for certain--will be from the U.S. and from Europe.

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I recently got quite ill when I was out of town and had to go to an ER for treatment. Instead of a doctor, I was treated by a physician assistant, who, as it turned out, misdiagnosed me and sent me back to my hotel sicker than before. The next day, I went to a teaching hospital where I was properly treated by doctors. Meanwhile, I just received a bill for the PA's 'exam,' for $519, and a mind-blowing defense from his office explaining that if is diagnosis was incorrect, there 'could have been a problem with the communication.'

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Watching the President's first joint session talk is to watch Democrats who are smiling-not only happy to be in power, but as if there is a collective sigh of our new reality, new leadership even in the midst of all this economic hardship.

But listening to the President is to listen to the seeds of building not only a governing majority, but a mature left.

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I am not a film reviewer and don't pretend to be. Alas, I haven't even seen all the films that were nominated for Oscars last night, but one film I did see-Waltz With Bashir--is a mind blower and I simply can't understand why it lost out for Best Foreign Film to a Japanese film that I suspect few filmgoers have seen and will not see. Waltz is one of the most important films to come out of Israel and to hit the world stage. A fierce anti-war film it shows the internal, psychic trauma faced by Israeli soldiers decades after a war; this one the first war with Lebanon.

Some columnists are suggesting that Hollywood prefers its Jews as victims, even as Holocaust stories--if so, that's tragic.

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