Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Israel/ Palestine

Renewed Conflict Looms as Israel-Palestine Talks still in Limbo

Juan Cole 10/25/2010

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

The Palestinian-Israeli peace talks are still in limbo, as the Israelis refuse to renew a freeze on new theft of and building on Palestinian land, while the Palestinians sensibly continue to refuse direct talks as long as the Israelis will not renew their settlement freeze. (What is the point of negotiating over territory if large swathes of it are being taken off the table by the other side even while you are talking to them?)

It may be the fault of America’s silly-season election circus to some extent. Many Palestinian officials are convinced that President Obama is waiting until after the US midterm elections to make any further commitment to the peace process.

Whereas in other kinds of news, a lack of progress in peace talks might not be big news, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is sort of like the Titanic heading for the iceberg, and lack of progress in setting the course straight spells looming catastrophe, not mere idling. It is unclear that the long-suffering Palestinians, many of them expelled from their homes in 1948 and left penniless, stateless refugees, are going forever to meekly put up with further land grabs, harassment and displacement as militant Zionist squatters flood illegally into the last bits of the territory assigned Palestinians by the United Nations in 1947. While most Palestinians have been remarkably forebearing about being the worst-treated nation in the world, that another round of violence could ensue upon the hopelessness signalled by a collapse of the Obama peace effort cannot be ruled out.

The impasse has impelled Palestinians to begin thinking about abrogating the Oslo Accords, in which Palestinians recognized Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, which never took place. In fact, since Israel signed the Oslo accords, it has flooded hundreds of thousands of Israeli illegal aliens into the territory it pledged to the Palestine Authority. From the Palestinian point of view, they were snookered. They got bupkes (indeed had much of their territory substracted from them, and Israel got recognition.

The Palestinian leadership is also toying with a unilateral declaration of independence.

Israel’s hard liners are losing ever more international standing. Catholic bishops from the Middle East have just called for an Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories.

Meanwhile, the Israelis continue to strangle Gaza with an inhumane and illegal blockade. The United Nations has just revealed that Israel has actively disrupted projects of school building in the Palestinian camps and slums.

Recently declassified documents demonstrate that the siege of Gaza is for political, not military purposes. It is illegal in international law to punish collectively an entire occupied population.

Filed Under: Israel/ Palestine

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • Iran's Hypersonic Missiles Hit Israeli Refinery, Military Sites, as Israel does the same to Tehran
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Israel: Will Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Opposition to Conscription Bring down Netanyahu's Gov't
  • Will Iran reply to Israeli Attacks with "War of Attrition?" Will its Nuclear Red Line Hold?

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved