The Man Who Stopped the Freeze

  Dani Dayan, head of Israel’s settler lobby, Yesha, has successfully kept another settlement freeze­—and peace talks—off the table. But can this mild-mannered former software tycoon stop the settler movement from imploding? On a clear day, Dani Dayan can look out the bedroom window of his two-story home and see the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv, just 20 miles away. But as we sit in his open and airy modern living room on a chilly winter day, with a eucalyptus tree swaying in the breeze and an ancient-looking wine press in the sprawling green yard, Tel Aviv seems a world away. The neighborhood’s serenity belies the fact that Dayan’s home is in the settlement of Maale Shomron in the northern West Bank, far beyond the separation barrier and deep in territory that may very well someday be part...

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