1.   Although Sharon is now willing to talk with the Palestinians, his uncompromising position on settlement expansion would make a negotiated solution difficult.

2.   American officials have also pleaded, along with Arafat, that Israel stop settlement expansion.

3.   Any efforts to renew settlement expansions would undoubtedly spark new unrest on the part of Palestinians.

4.   Boneh said that he, too, believed that settlement expansion would be an effective response as would economic suffocation of the Palestinians.

5.   But at a meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday, some senior security officials reportedly opposed any settlement expansion on security grounds.

6.   But his speech quickly turned to condemnations of Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank and Gaza.

7.   But Hanan Ashrawi, a minister in the Palestinian cabinet, called the Israeli settlement expansion a death-knell for peace efforts.

8.   But settlement expansion is hardly a dead issue, and neither is uncertainty over what it will mean for peace.

9.   He has also indicated that, while he he will not move to reverse the settlement expansion that took place under Netanyahu.

10.   International mediators have repeatedly cautioned Israel that settlement expansion was not only a diplomatic roadblock but a ground-level provocation to the Palestinian population.