Marc Tracy notes the latest impasse:
In compliance with the Quartet’s timeline, the Palestinian Authority actually submitted a peace proposal. As far as opening positions go, it sounds not bad: borders based on the Green Line but with two percent of the West Bank land swapped; a largely demilitarized West Bank; and permission for Israel to maintain a force along the Jordan River. It is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s turn to respond—and he hasn’t and says he won’t, not unless he gets direct negotiations, which he knows can’t be effective without unity, and which he knows that, with unity, would mean negotiating with Hamas, which he knows most of the world would see as a reasonable deal-breaker.
So, dead as a doornail. Merry Christmas.
Which is, of course, great news for AIPAC. The Atlantic recently released a multi-media report on whether there are any terms both sides will accept, focusing on four areas: borders, security, refugees, and Jerusalem. An overview of the project here. Updates here. A rare American protest against growing fundamentalist pressure on women's freedoms in Israel here.
(Photo: Israeli soldiers drag away a Palestinian man as people gather to prevent bulldozers from reaching their farming lands which are due to be levelled in order to build a section of the controversial Israeli separation barrier and expand the nearby Jewish settlement of Atarot on December 4, 2011. Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)
The Dish 