According to JPost the Obama administration is soon going to announce its support for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
From Jpost
It is safe to predict that the Obama administration will call for a settlement "freeze." George Mitchell has been associated with the freeze concept since the Commission he headed in 2001 concluded that "Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements." The Bush Administration signed on to the idea in 2003, when it joined with the E.U., Russia, and the Secretary General of the U.N. to promulgate the "Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." The Roadmap requires, in Phase I, that, "Consistent with the Mitchell Report, the Government of Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)." The Obama Administration's commitment to the Roadmap was reaffirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her confirmation hearing, and no doubt she means to include in this the call for a settlement freeze.
First of all - this is something I support. The settlements are a cancer on Israel's future and as a non-religious Jew I could care less what we were supposed to be granted by G-d. He can work that out with us later.
Secondly - these settlements and the required support infrastructure around them for the IDF are a 100% guarantee of the long-term demographic destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Eventually Israel will comprise more of a non-Jewish population than Jewish - which will result in an intolerable situation. As I have stated many times I feel that Israel's future lies outside of the occupied territories.
More JPost:
Obama will have to repair the stance of the US in the region by making overtures to the Arab world. This includes putting strong pressure on Israel to freeze settlement construction, and that the concept of "natural growth" for West Bank settlements will become a red line.
So we'll see how support for a "freeze" works out. I'm sure everyone remembers what happened back in the 1990s when George H.W. Bush and Secretary Baker supported a freeze in settlements - it wasn't good. As a supporter and friend of Israel I'll do my utmost to counter extremist voices which oppose any freeze as being "anti-Israel." A freeze on settlements, including no allowance for "natural growth," is in Israel's best interests.