To address this post, first you have to get beyond the label of Apartheid. Perhaps the poster uses it because he feels it is accurate, but one must focus on the subtext of the term as well. Apartheid is typically used to describe different races, implying that in fact, there is a Jewish race and a Palestinian race. The last time a politician regularly referred to the Jewish race, his goal was to exterminate it, so anyone using the term must have an agenda that is different than bridging differences amongst people and opinions. If you walk into my synagogue you will see African Americans and Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans, and everything in between. English is such a rich language -- one would think another word could be used.
Overall, I think that Mr. Rather's report is on target. The Palestinians, the U.S., and the Israeli's are focussed on security. From the Israeli perspective, this is crucial for peace in the region. If Israel is to give up land for peace, it wants to make sure that the land is not another staging point for more attacks. I agree with Mr. Rather that the time for Israel to strike a deal is now, but alas, that's not what the democratically elected government thinks. Perhaps it will fall and a more moderate government will take over. I hope so. We do know that the next Israeli government will be democratically elected; we have no confidence of that fact for any of its neighbors; any peace treaty can be abrogated at any time without successive democratic governments. With the possible exception of Iraq, there is no such thing in the Arab or Palestinian world.
I would prefer that Israel stop its settlement policy, but I did want to examine the phrase "endless expansion". There has been some limited activity by the current government, but perhaps not the next. It evokes the sense that Israel is colonizing the Wst Bank at a feverish pace,but in fact, the pace is quite slow. Per Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement , from 2004 to 2009 there have been 70,000 additional settlers in the West Bank and just 8,400 in East Jerusalem. Much or most of this might just be growing families, and not just new settlements at all. If fact, the pace over the last 2 years have been even slower.
If this represents endless expansion, I wonder how we should describe the movement of Han Chinese to Tibet, Shiites to Kirkuk and Russians to Chechnya?