Netanyahu Wags Washington    The settlements of Rehelim,
Brukhin, and Sansanah already exist. They are just three of the
settlements erected over the last two decades with the
government's aid and abetment. The ministerial decision merely
relabels a rogue operation as an official action. If hypocrisy
is tribute that vice pays to virtue, this is the moment when
vice stops coughing up the tribute. Or, in diplomatic terms, it
is the moment when the client state decides that it no longer
needs to pay any attention to the preferences of its patron in
Washington.  The freeze on new settlements dates to 1992, when
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin began seeking a peace agreement
with the Palestinians. In 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu's first
government officially lifted the freeze, but retained a
requirement that the cabinet had to approve any new Israeli
community in the West Bank. Such approval hasn't been granted.
Even right-wing governments have wanted to avoid a firestorm of
foreign criticism.  Yet the freeze on new sett