In Israel, The Failure of Peace Talks is a Cause for Celebration

Israel worked hard on Wednesday to make the failure of an American-brokered effort for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations sound like a success. Officials here insisted that Israel remained determined to try to achieve a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians and that coordination between the Israeli prime minister and the Americans has perhaps never been better. But the optimism was one-sided as the peace process entered into a new deadlock. A day after the Obama administration said it had given up its effort to persuade Jerusalem to freeze construction in Jewish settlements for 90 days in return for an attractive package of security and diplomatic incentives, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said there was no doubt that the peace process was in “a difficult crisis.” The Palestinians walked out of talks with the Israelis in late September after a previous 10-month moratorium on construction in the settlements expired. They said that they would not return as long as building was going on.

Read the rest- and be depressed (unless you are joyfully anticipating the ethnocide of the Palestinians).