Commentators also focus on the Obama administration's reiteration that a freeze must include the "natural growth" of settlements. Krauthammer says that this "means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line . . . It means no increase in population. Which means no babies." This is nonsense.

Rather, the blessing of a new baby does not translate into a right to build more apartments or houses in settlements. The two issues have nothing to do with each other. Israelis, like Americans, move all the time when life circumstances -- children, jobs, housing availability -- change.

The pattern of population growth in the territories actually undercuts the natural-growth argument. Since 1993, when Israel signed the Oslo Accords, Israel's West Bank settler population has grown from 116,300 to 289,600. The numbers in East Jerusalem increased from 152,800 to more than 186,000. This goes far beyond the natural increase of families already living in the settlements.