My Way News reports: "The Palestinians dug in ahead of a crucial meeting Thursday with Washington's Mideast envoy, saying they can't be expected to continue peace talks unless Israel reverses a decision to lift restrictions on West Bank settlement construction [...] Starting Thursday, the EU foreign policy chief will meet with Netanyahu, Abbas and Mitchell over two days to try to prevent the collapse of negotiations."
Comment: This is really a fake impasse. The temporary restriction on West Bank settlement construction was a concession by Israel and they made it clear they were expecting a reciprocal concession by the Palestinians. They even went so far as to suggest a possible concession - publicly accepting that Israel was a Jewish state - but the Palestinians refused to budge. I'm only pointing this out because the media (no surprise) is omitting this fact in their reporting and letting their audience believe that Israel is being the obstinate party. President Obama has not only called on the Palestinians but also on other Arab states to offer conciliatory gestures to promote peace, and they have refused. Once again we see that the dominant narrative is that Israel must make all the concessions while the Palestinians sit back and act aggrieved that Israel refuses to negotiate. How can one negotiate when the other side refuses to put anything on the table? The Palestinian strategy is to demand that Israel give more and then when Israel gives a little, they claim it is not enough. This is why most observers believe the land-for-peace process is futile, because Israel already gave land - Gaza - and it did not promote peace. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that the construction restrictions were always temporary (everyone knew that) and given the lack of Palestinian reciprocity, it's not surprising that Israel allowed the restrictions to expire.
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