Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the United States had to provide "guarantees about issues of settlements".
It was not a sensitive or complicated policy matter, like the "thorny" issues of settlements, land confiscations, collective punishments or other violations of international law.
"If they destroy the peace talks over this minor issue of settlement building, the Labor Party will leave the government," Minorities Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman of Labor said in a telephone interview.
Yet in meeting with his Cabinet today, Mr. Sharon told his ministers, most of whom are from parties identified with the settlement movement, that the issue of settlement outposts "might be addressed in the statement," a senior Israeli official said.
Both the international and the Israeli media – and, presumably, their audiences – couldn't get enough of debating the odds of a major clash between Washington and Jerusalem on the issue of settlement construction.
The issue of settlement building has plagued regional peace efforts and Israeli-American relations for decades, ever since the 1967 Middle East war ended with Israel holding vast swaths of land that had been won from its neighbors.
These trends indicate that Barack Obama took a smaller political risk than his predecessors would have when he (temporarily, alas) stood up to Mr. Netanyahu on the issue of settlement expansion.
Basically, he replaced the contentious issue of settlements with an even more contentious matter: boundaries.
But the top Israeli official said that the issue of settlements was still a major concern.
"The issue of settlements is clear: we never gave up our vision, whether now or previously".
