Yesha Council chairman Dani Dayan brought the case for continued Jewish settlement in the West Bank to the op-ed pages of The New York Times Thursday, and argued against a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The insertion of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan would be a recipe for disaster," Dayan wrote, saying that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Arab lands would ensure a new Palestinian state became a "hotbed of extremism."

Israel, Dayan wrote, would eventually be forced to recapture the territory for security purposes.

Arguing that the settlements were both moral and wise, "a combination of inalienable rights and realpolitik," Dayan painted the settlements as an irreversible fact. About 10% of Israeli Jews live beyond the 1967 borders, he wrote (including those who live in Jerusalem neighborhoods, widely expected to remain under Israeli control in any negotiated settlement with the Palestinians).

"Given the irreversibility of the huge Israeli civilian presence in Judea and Samaria and continuing Palestinian rejectionism, Western governments must reassess their approach to resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict," Dayan wrote. "They should acknowledge that no final-status solution is imminent." (© 1995-2011, The Jerusalem Post 07/27/12)