Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a halt to all high-level contacts with the Palestinian Authority on any “non-security” issues, a further blow to the peace talks.
The move bars ministerial chiefs from meeting to coordinate with Palestinians, as well as the usual senior bureaucrats who meet during the course of maintaining the occupation of the West Bank.
Israel is still not officially terming the peace process “dead,” and Netanyahu notably exempted Tzipi Livni, the chief negotiator, from today’s ban on talks. Still, there are no talks planned, or really anticipated anymore.
The reason no one wants to admit the talks are dead is because of the ongoing effort to spin the blame for the talks’ failure as totally the Palestinians’ fault, and fear that the US still remembers the order of events leading to the breakdown. Israel is said to be “deeply disappointed” by Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent comments criticizing Israel’s settlement expansion during the collapse of the talks.
Now, seriously…there really never were any "talks" and there definitely never was any intention by Israel to allow a 2-state solution. Everything that has happened in the past 60-some years has been directed at permanently removing the Palestinians from their land – either by running them out, or eliminating them entirely.
The PA should stop meeting on security issues, and stop being the Israeli enforcers.
Let the Israelis run their own occupation, and pay for it. Let the locals use some IED's on the Israelis while they try to do it. Let it go Iraq, all the way.