Imposing A Status Quo. Had an interesting meeting today with a lecturer on counter-terrorism, who thinks that an agreement with the Palestinians is not going to be forthcoming in the near future and therefore Israel should impose a status quo along the lines of the Oslo Accords, where the IDF controls the borders of the West Bank, retains the unpopulated areas in perpetuity and essentially lets the bastards simmer on the other side of the wall until they realize that its in their interests to cut a deal. I think this isn't a terrible idea (its certainly better than Yossi Beilin's Geneva Capitulations, or anything the UN/EU Axis of Idiocy is likely to come up with) but it comes with two assumptions: 1) An end to settlement activity in the area Israel does not intend to retain under any circumstances and 2) a serious hasbara initiative on the part of the Israeli government, ideally involving an information ministry under direct Prime Ministerial control. I think given the current situation, this is probably what is going to happen (barring the Palestinians doing something really dumb, which I don't put past them) although I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of more total withdrawal occurs later on in the game. At any rate, I agree with his main point, which is that no agreement is going to be signed anytime soon, so we'd better start coming up with solutions that Israel can implement unilaterally and that aren't influenced by the sort of apocalyptic hysterics we've been getting lately from the Left.