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How to ensure success at the Paris peace conference

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman made some positive remarks this week about the need for a regional arrangement, but the route from words to deeds is a long and uncertain one.
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Many in Israel wonder if the most radical right-wing government will be the one to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a question also discussed in Ramallah, Paris and Washington.

This brings to mind the famous reflection by the Prophet Jeremiah, who lived 2,700 years ago: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" (Jeremiah, 13:23). Sadly, prospects that the current government will evacuate a quarter million Jewish settlers from the West Bank (the rest will be allowed to remain in their homes as part of a land swap with the Palestinians) and renounce its sovereignty over Jerusalem's Temple Mount is akin to the prospects of the leader of the left-wing Meretz Party, Zehava Gal-On, moving to live in a West Bank outpost.

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