New settlements will close door to peace, warn Palestinians

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Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, has written to Tony Blair and 95 other world leaders urging them to stop Israel building 3,500 homes between the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim and Arab east Jerusalem. If they are built, he told The Independent, it would "close the door to peace" ...The question he posed for President George Bush and Mr Blair was: "If the issue of Jerusalem, the issue of borders, the issue of water and the issue of settlements are determined by the Israeli wall and settlements, what is left for negotiation? How do you translate President Bush's two-state solution to a realistic political track, while the land that's supposed to constitute a Palestinian state is eaten up by settlements and walls?"