Rabin criticizes the comprehensive approach implicit in…

Rabin criticizes the comprehensive approach implicit in the Madrid talks, concluding that the Palestinian-Israeli track hold more promise for progress because both Israelis and Palestinians want to move beyond the status quo of the intifadah.

To stimulate diplomacy and to patch up relations with the United States, he orders a freeze on the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, which allow the Bush administration to approve housing guarantees for Russian immigrants, of whom more than three hundred and twenty thousand have come to Israel from 1989 to 19­91. (In fact, some previously planned construction continues in the territories, and the settler population will grow from one hundred thousand to one hundred and thirty-five thousand during Rabin's term.)