The long-awaited peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis have resumed. There were no photo ops and no statements were made, to allow the teams to work together and not think about the media waiting outside. Far from the spotlight might help matters move along somewhat but only if the Israeli government decides what its aim is in these latest negotiations: Is it trying to reach a peace agreement or is it trying to undermine all possibilities of reaching such an agreement? As a gesture of goodwill, Israel began releasing more than two dozen Palestinian prisoners on the eve of the new peace talks. But in another gesture, this one of ill will, Israel said it would forge ahead with a plan to build 900 housing units in East Jerusalem. The new units are part of the package of more than 3,000 new homes for Jews in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem which the Palestinians hope will be the capital of their future state. The last direct negotiations five years ago stalled over the issue of settlements. That more illegal homes are on the way -- announced just before the talks began -- helps ensure a failed outcome. This is the third attempt by the two sides in 13 years to draw a border between them. But they face even longer odds than in the last round, which ended in 2008. Since then, at least 40,000 more Israelis have settled in areas the Palestinians want for a state. There are now over half a million settlers living in settlements, making it even harder to partition the land. The vortex of problems the settlements create has been complicated by semantics. US Secretary of State John Kerry called the latest settlements illegitimate instead of the usual illegal. The State Department would not explain the distinction between "illegal" and "illegitimate" and that it was the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators' place, and not Washington's, to determine the legitimacy or illegitimacy of any Israeli settlements. No Israeli settlement is legal or legitimate, for every one of them is built on stolen Palestinian land. They are all deemed illegal by the international community and thus the description should remain as such. Kerry has said an agreement should be reached in nine months, however, this deadline is optimistic. Why should, and how could, this nine-month deadline be more meaningful than all prior deadlines in what is called, but hardly resembles, a Middle East peace process? Throughout this process, all deadlines, starting with the five-year deadline for achieving a permanent peace agreement set in the Oslo Accords signed 20 years ago, have been consistently missed. Such failures have been guaranteed by the practical reality that, for Israel, “failure” has had no consequences other than a continuation of the status quo, which, for all Israeli governments, has been preferable to any other alternative. For Israel, failure has always constituted success, permitting it to continue confiscating Palestinian land, expanding its West Bank colonies and generally making its occupation of Palestine even more permanent and irreversible. The next round of talks is expected to be held next week, also under a media blackout, in Jericho in the West Bank. For there to be any chance of true success in this or any new round of negotiations towards ending the occupation of Palestine on a two-state basis and achieving peace with some measure of justice, failure must have clear, compelling and unambiguous consequences.
