So. President Obama has ordered a "pause" in the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. According to him, the reason is that Fatah, the organisation which controls the West Bank, has allied itself with Hamas, which controls Gaza. "We won't negotiate with a terrorist organisation" say the Israelis, so that's that. Never mind the fact that Hamas, for all its failings, won a thumping majority in elections and can therefore claim a substantial mandate for its policies. Nor is it enough that Fatah now accepts the existence of the state of Israel (a stumbling block for years) The Israeli government has simply moved the goalposts yet again, as they have done so often in the past, certainly if the Snowden leaks are to be believed, and now insist on the recognition of a "Jewish state". This is a bit hard to swallow for a people who have hundreds of thousands already living in Israel- what of them in a "Jewish" state?
Accepting the inevitable, Obama has, like Pontius Pilate, simply washed his hands of the whole business, telling John Kerry to give it a rest. Poor bastard. Apparently when he enters any given negotiating room, people start giggling behind their hands and whispering "See him? Yeah, he's the guy who lost the election that time".
Unfortunately this means leaving the Israelis to run things exactly as they wish. And if there is a "pause" in the negotiations, you can be sure there will be no pause in the development of the illegal settlements, no pause in their manipulation of the lives of the Palestinian people: denying their right of free movement, withholding tax revenues whenever they feel like it (which is right now as it happens) and frustrating their ability to create any kind of manufacturing base- in other words keeping them poor and powerless.
Who cares? America doesn't. The EU doesn't. Tony Blair certainly doesn't. Do you?
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