Brilliant reporting by Nathan Jeffay in the Forward, on the question of land swaps. Is there even enough land to swap, per the Obama idea? And what would swapping mean? There are several issues: There isn’t enough Israeli land to give the Palestinians to make a swap even-steven, hard-core settlers outside the settlment blocs would never leave the West Bank so that ups the percentage of land that would have to be swapped; and then what if “populated” areas are included in the swaps– Israelis moved off land inside Israel to give it to the Palestinians, Israeli Palestinians transferred with their land to the Palestinian state. A recognized idea in Europe, someone tells the Forward. But it does make you wonder about the limits of ethnic nationalism. (Just imagine for one second American Jews being asked to transfer their residency from Massachusetts to New York in order to solidify the Jewish #s in New York…)

Some excerpts from the Forward reporting: