As Palestinians and Israelis take their first steps in resuming much-delayed peace negotiations, there is strong evidence emerging that the hawkish government of Benjamin Netanyahu is about to break its promise to hold off on its illegal expansionist plans in the Occupied Territories.

The anti-colonialist Israeli watchdog group Peace Now has revealed that Israeli colonists have begun work on a 14-unit building on the site of an abandoned police station in Ras Al Amoud, an Arab neighbourhood in occupied east Jerusalem. The Palestinians immediately viewed this project as a violation of the terms of the so-called proximity talks, which began last week. US Middle East special envoy George J. Mitchell, meanwhile, has returned to Washington to prepare for the second session.
This development poses a serious threat to the re-launched talks, which Washington had warned both sides not to jeopardise. In the transcript of a telephone conversation with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, released by the White House, President Barack Obama "confirmed his intention to hold both sides accountable for actions that undermine trust during the talks".

Nevertheless, Israeli Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser told Army Radio over the weekend that "building is expected to begin in Har Homa ... and Neve Yaakov, where [construction] bids have been issued", referring to two neighbourhoods in occupied east Jerusalem. "Building in [occupied] Jerusalem is continuing according to its regular pace," he added.

Israel's expectations, according to press reports citing a high-level official, are that the Obama administration will not unveil mediation proposals for a Middle East peace plan before the start of direct, substantive talks between the two sides on final status issues. In turn, the Israeli prime minister reportedly insists that although the "core" issues — the status of occupied Jerusalem, as well as the borders and the rights of Palestinian refugees — will be discussed during the indirect talks, he will not make binding decisions on them.

In limbo

The refugees have been waiting for more than 60 years to return to their usurped homeland, although Israel pledged to allow them to do so when it became a UN member state. How much longer they have to wait now depends on American intervention as much as on Arab and Palestinian efforts.
Although the focus is largely on the Palestinians who took refuge in neighbouring Arab states, the conditions experienced by those who have remained under Israeli control since 1967 are deplorable and intolerable. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) reported on Sunday that three out of every four Palestinian children in occupied east Jerusalem live below the poverty line.

This Israeli rights group maintained in its report that "a unified Jerusalem does not exist", in contradiction to official Israeli claims that the Holy City is now unified. "Over 95,000 children in [occupied east Jerusalem] live in a perpetual state of poverty", the report said, adding that the annual budget allocation for an elementary school child in occupied east Jerusalem is $152 (Dh559), compared with around $627 (Dh2,306) in west Jerusalem.

"Israel's policy for the past four decades has taken concrete form as discrimination in planning and construction, expropriation of land, and minimal investment in physical infrastructure and government and municipal services," the report continued. Furthermore, about 160,000 Palestinian residents have no suitable and legal connection to the water network, and main sewage lines need to be extended by about 50 kilometres.

The hard-hitting report noted that Israel has expropriated more than one-third of land that was once privately owned by Palestinians in occupied east Jerusalem, and has used it to build more than 50,000 homes for the Jews.

No wonder the Palestinians want out — now and not later. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Dr Mustafa Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian peace activist, praised the institution-building efforts initiated by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank. However, he stressed that the Palestinians do not want to give the impression "that internal economic development means statehood", underlining the point that the Palestinian government "is not allowed [by Israel] to function in 60 per cent of the West Bank", including occupied Jerusalem. Economic development, he said, is not a "substitute for the need to end [the Israeli] occupation".
Obama cannot afford to allow Israel to break its promise, one more time, as it did when Vice-President Joe Biden visited there recently.