The lid put on the Middle East peace talks was done so as to reduce high expectations. This plan, to surround the negotiations in secrecy, seems to have been correct because the talks have thus far achieved almost nothing. The Palestinians affirm that the six rounds of talks which started at the end of July have not made any progress. The complaints include Israel not presenting anything positive, the absence of international pressure on Israel to make concessions, and Israel pursuing settlement construction. This could not possibly be surprising to anyone. Israel may be changing its rhetoric but not its tactics. Instead of opposing a Palestinian state, it is willing to accept one that has no sovereignty to speak of. What is surprising are some of the statements coming from Israeli officials during these days of the negotiations which are intent on making the talks fail and alerting the Palestinians to the fact that they will never get what they want. There are two examples of this deliberate sabotage of the talks: Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon says his country will not evacuate Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank for any future peace agreement with Palestinians. And with peace negotiators discussing the potential future partition of Jerusalem, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat emphatically says the city cannot be split and urged the negotiators to take any such talk off the table. The complete acquisition of settlements and Jerusalem are a bedrock of Israeli foreign and domestic policy. Israel has published plans for 3,100 new settler homes in recent days, deepening Palestinian distrust. It is bent on keeping every single settlement it has created on Palestinian land. But it is the fate of Jerusalem that remains at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. While past peace talks have discussed partition options, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says that that is out of the question. So Jerusalem is now surrounded on all sides and stranded, with little or no connection to other Palestinian areas. Israel is insisting on postponing any decision on Jerusalem but it tirelessly tries to change the face of the city, building settlements inside and around it, altering and Judaizing it day by day. In the negotiations, Israel is not in the mood to discuss Jerusalem right now, but it is in the mood to build more settlements inside and around the city. The creation of a vastly expanded Greater Jerusalem incorporates the city as Israel's capital. This is in direct violation of UN Security Council orders and is a serious blow to any hope for a viable Palestinian entity. A corridor to the east of the new Greater Jerusalem incorporates the settler town of Ma'aleh Adumim, virtually bisecting the West Bank. It is fine to negotiate but not when the talks undermine the very basis of international resolutions and norms. UN resolutions, backed by rulings from the International Court of Justice, state that all land inside Israel grabbed since the morning of June 5, 1967 are occupied territories, including the old city of Jerusalem and its surroundings. When all these laws are flouted, how will the hawkish Netanyahu accept a sovereign Palestinian state? Egypt insisted on taking back every inch of Sinai, just as Syria is holding out for every inch of the Golan. The Palestinians cannot accept less. US Secretary of State John Kerry has set a goal of nine months for an agreement to be reached. But in the region, there is much skepticism about Washington's current revival of the peace process. It is not hard to see why.
