Goteiner denies there was any deal, tacit or otherwise, in which Dodyk would refrain from criticizing a fee based on the gross settlement in return for the defendant receiving most of the money back.
And the administration's first major venture into the peace process — a fruitless effort to persuade Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in return for Arab gestures toward Israel — was devised largely by Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
Even if, as it is estimated, about half would move out of their settlements in return for equivalent housing in Israel and/or some form of subsidy, that still leaves about 37,000 dedicated settlers who would fight the state of Israel against being uprooted from their homes and from land they believe is theirs by right.
As chairman of an international fact-finding commission after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, Mr. Mitchell was the first foreign official to equate Israeli security and settlement building, calling on Israel to freeze all settlement construction in return for Palestinian efforts to rein in violence.
In a poll taken after the schoolboy murders, 55percentt of the Israelis surveyed said Israel should agree to freeze all settlement building in return for a cease-fire with the Palestinians.
Mr. Mitchell, while generally respected in Israel, is unpopular among members of the right because as chairman of an international fact-finding commission after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, he called on Israel to freeze all settlement construction in return for Palestinian efforts to rein in the violence.
Instead, Curl paid a $150,000 settlement in 1989 in return for the family's silence.
Assad is also striving to gain some promises regarding a broader settlement with Israel in return for an eventual promise to withdraw from Lebanon.
Most informal plans assume that Israel would get a variation of the pre-1967 lines to bring the big settlement blocs into Israel in return for a land swap that would give the Palestinians 22 per cent of historic Palestine.
Yesterday, he said the agreement could be important in determining how successful the settlement would be in returning lost deposits to Holocaust victims.
