We say: The most important issue to consider when looking at the future of settlements is the question of whether their presence benefits or hinders Israeli security and the viability of the peace process. The West Bank is not sovereign Israeli territory. The settlers who live there today live on land that was taken unilaterally, often without regard to private ownership by Palestinians (a fact that Israel today acknowledges). The settlers' presence places a heavy burden on the IDF, and a heavy economic, moral, and political burden on all Israelis.

Setting aside the issue of whether or not the settlements are legal - an issue for lawyers and judges to determine - what we are dealing with here is a political question that is broader and in many ways more important. If there is ever going to be peace with the Palestinians, it will require the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. Keeping settlements at the cost of a negotiated two-state solution would be a Pyrrhic victory for Israel.

The fact is that, based on past Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, many (if not most) West Bank settlers will be able to remain where they are under a future peace agreement, as part of a land-swap agreement. Today, settlements make such an arrangement complicated but not impossible; if settlements continue to expand and proliferate, they will further complicate negotiations and the end result may be worse for Israel.

They say: Those calling for the removal of settlers are arguing for an openly anti-Semitic policy of ethnic cleansing. It is a policy that is not unlike Hitler's call for German territory to be "Judenrein" (empty of Jews).

We say: The idea that Jews, because they are Jews, may not live in a given place is abhorrent. But appealing to the trauma that Jews experienced at the hands of the Nazis in discussing the issue of settlements is inflammatory and misleading. Calling for Israeli settlers to leave or be removed from the West Bank has nothing in common with the genocidal policies of the Nazis. It also has nothing to do with the question of whether Jews, as Jews, can live in a future Palestinian state.

It should be recalled that there were no Israelis living in the West Bank in June 1967. The Israelis who have since settled there have walked into a political trap, with the active encouragement of their government - Labor as well as Likud.

Certainly there was a small Jewish presence in the West Bank prior to 1948, but demanding a "right of return" to Jewish property in the West Bank opens a very dangerous question about the legitimacy of Palestinian claims to a "right of return" to property they owned in Israel before 1948. Following this argument to its logical conclusion would mean closing the door to the viability of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. Why would Israelis, and American Jews, want to go down this path?