FWIW, I think it's significant. It reflects a certain variety of hard-line Israeli realism. See, for instance, the Jewish Daily Forward (www.forward.com). The settlements are not defensible, and the occupation only adds credibility to the Intifada. If one rejects the alternative of wholesale population expulsion -- ethnic cleansing -- the only recourse is to hunker down behind relatively defensible boundaries. The crazies' settlements have to be dismantled.
This incidentally would completely cut the ground out from under the Arab/Moslem govts, who would face the obligation of nurturing and disciplining the new proto-state, and of being deprived of a safety valve for their own domestic discontent.
It's funny how this view & the dove position seem to meet, after going in contrary directions. In this sense, putting aside the horror of the violence on both sides, the suicide bombings are working and Sharon's response is not.
mbs
> Did Friedman call for U.S./Nato intervention to form a
> Palestinian state? Did I read it correctly or not? Isn't that a
> significant position to take at this time?
> Alan Jacobson