The Israeli government has announced a new step in plans to build 300 new homes in Beit El, in  northern Samaria, just as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to convince Mahmoud Abbas to return to talks if Israel slaps a freeze on building for Jews in Judea and Samaria.

Reports from Israeli sources earlier this week stated that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has buckled under pressure from Kerry, and probably President Barack Obama, to freeze construction to bring Abbas back to the so-called negotiating table.

“Negotiations” in Arab Doublespeak means that Israel must accept Palestinian Authority territorial and political demands or they will be forced down its throat, either by the United Nations or by “resistance,” another Doublespeak word, which means terror.

No government  official has denied the reports of a “de facto” building freeze, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is conveniently in China.

Kerry hosted the government’s unofficial Minister for the Peace Process, Tzipi Livni, in Washington last week and continued discussions with her in Rome this week, where he said he will return to Israel in two weeks.

Journalists covering the State Department asked why he is returning after having been here last month, but the reports of the unofficial freeze provide the obvious answer.

But smack in the middle of Kerry’s Big Momentum – run as fast as you can with the ball so that everyone is too dazzled to see that the ball is a bomb – the government announced the next step for building 296 more homes in Beit El.

The town is not just another community in Samaria. More than 6.000 national religious Jews live there. Beit El is a symbol of the national religious movement in Judea and Samaria. A yeshiva bearing the town’s Biblical name has wide influence across the country. It is home to two of the most prominent national religious rabbis in Israel, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, head of Yeshiva Beit El, and Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, who is widely respected and consulted by many Jews who are not part of the “club.”

After the announcement of the preliminary approval of the homes, the Palestinian Authority immediately said everyone can forget about trying to dig up the bones of the peace process.

As with almost every announcement of building new homes, the one in Beit El refers only to one of several bureaucratic steps before the bulldozers can start digging, not less than a year from now.

Israel has been through this time after time, the most famous incident being the announcement of another bureaucratic stage having been completed for building homes in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinian Authority.

The news broke just as Vice President Joe Biden was landing in Israel, causing high tension between Jerusalem and Washington for a long time.

Coincidental or not with Kerry’s dream for resumed direct talks between Netanyahu and Abbas, the Beit El housing project proves that Israel is trying to “sabotage” Kerry’s efforts, according to senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat.

“We condemn this new decision which is proof that the Israeli government wants to sabotage and ruin the US administration’s efforts to revive the peace process,” he said. “This is a message to the American administration and a blow to the peace process. This aims to drag the region into violence instead of peace and stability.”

Violence.

Erekat did not even have the diplomacy to say “resistance.”

It is out-and-out violence, and obviously Kerry would blame Israel if the Arabs kill more Jews. Otherwise he would have to go back on his statement earlier this year that the proof that Abbas is such a great peace partner can be found in the fact that not even one Jew was murdered by Palestinian Authority terrorists in 2012.

What about 2011? Well, that is history. Let’s look at the present and not the past and talk peace.

And what about the present the year 2013? Uh, yeah, well, sure, a Palestinian Authority terrorist stabbed to death a father of five, but that was an isolated incident, and after all, the murderer was not a member of a known terrorist gang.

Kerry does not have to defend himself. He has Livni to do that for him. Both of them desperately need a peace agreement, Kerry because he wants to be president and Livni because she needs something to justify her being politically alive. The latest polls shows that her party would win zero seats in if elections were held today.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated two uranium processing facilities on Tuesday at the same Western diplomats are trying to jawbone him into surrendering work on uranium enrichment.

Marking “National Day of Nuclear Technology,” Ahmadinejad, via video, launched the production plants in the central province of Yazd.

Two days earlier, European Union Policy Chief Catherine Ashton admitted that Iran and the six world powers “remain far apart” from advancing in negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

Western diplomats stubbornly insist it is worthwhile to continue talks with Iran, with one diplomat, speaking anonymously, going so far as to state, “There is enough substance for these negotiations to continue.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Israel on Sunday, negotiations cannot continue forever, but, as usual, no deadline was stated. nor is it clear what the United States would do if a deadline were not met.

Meanwhile, more concerns have been raised supporting Israel’s years-old contention that Iran has been actively working towards producing a nuclear weapon.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told a nuclear nonproliferation in Washington that Iran’s refusal to allow nuclear inspectors into the Parchin military base raised serious suspicions.  “We have credible information that Iran continued its activities beyond 2003,” he said. American intelligence previously has claimed that Iran suspended work on nuclear development in that year, while Israel insisted no such halt occurred.

On Friday, JewishPress.com reported on the change in strategy on the part of the Palestinian Authority.

The PA is now demanding that Israel hand over maps of their vision of a final arrangement, to use them as a starting point for negotiations, as opposed to dealing with the primary issue that Israel is most concerned about, ending the conflict.

Handing over the maps would also have hurt Israel’s negotiating ability, as the negotiations would have then only circled around the depth of Israeli withdrawal from Israeli territories in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, as opposed to how to actually reach a workable and sustainable peace agreement with the Palestinians, which is not something the Palestinian Authority actually wants to reach.

In response, Israeli government officials said they would not be delivering any maps or a list of other concessions to US Secretary of State John Kerry, as PA President Mahmoud Abbas demanded.

Israel is insisting that any talks begin without any preconditions.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid announced he has canceled the controversial biannual budget concept, and the change will be implemented once this current biannual budget gets passed in the coming month.

The idea of working with a two-year budget was introduced in the previous government as a way of providing coalition stability.

In previous governments, negotiating and passing the annual budget would strain the coalition at its seams, as differing interests would often nearly rip the coalition apart. In order to avoid the risk of dissolution of the coalition, Netanyahu’s government decided to reduce the number of times the budget would need to be renegotiated.

Lapid claims that the government’s overdraft is a result of the discrepancies that resulted from the government’s expectations not meeting up to fiscal reality, and the inability to fix those errors within the fiscal year because of the 2 year plan.

The country will go back to the annual budget starting in 2015.

“So close, and yet so far,” could effectively describe the status of coalition talks according to leaks, rumors and reports.

At the moment, coalition talks are reportedly circling primarily around the Education Ministry that Likud-Beytenu wants to keep, and which Yair Lapid is demanding at all costs.

Some within Likud-Beytenu believe that Lapid is not interested in forming a coalition at all, and wants to drag out the process until the upcoming deadline forces new elections, as polls indicate his position might strengthen even further if elections were held again.

Likud-Beytenu is also saying that they will once again approach the Hareidim if Lapid doesn’t start to back down from all his demands.

Another rumor is that HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) is getting frustrated and angry at Lapid, and feel he is taking advantage of the strength they’ve given him with their alliance.

The rumors are saying that Likud-Beytenu will leave Lapid out of the coalition, and are specifically not mentioning HaBayit HaYehudi in that threat.

On Tuesday night, a senior member of Shas was supposedly called in to meet the Prime Minister. The rumors say it was either Aryeh Deri or Eli Yishai.

Netanyahu might have called the senior Shas member in to pressure Lapid, or alternatively, Netanyahu might actually be trying to form a coalition without Lapid, if he believes that Lapid is trying to drag the country to new elections.

Another rumor, which would be very significant if true, is that Labor leader Sheli Yachimovitch secretly met with Shas spiritual leader, Rav Ovadia Yosef, Tuesday evening.

With just days left, anything could be happening at this point.

On Saturday night, Israel’s President Shimon Peres formally tasked Prime Minister Netanyahu with the job of forming the next government for the 19th Knesset.

Netanyahu received endorsement from Likud-Beytenu (31), Yesh Atid (19), HaBayit Hayehudi (12), Shas (11), UTJ (7), and Kadima (2) for the role of Prime Minister.

Labor (15), Meretz (6), HaTnua (6), Ra’am-Tal (4), Hadash (4) and Balad (3) did not give Netanyahu their endorsement.

Official negotiations are set to begin on Sunday.

According to Eli Yishai, Shas believes that they will most likely be sitting in the opposition, and it is generally assumed that UTJ will be there too.

That would leave Netanyahu with no choice but to bring HaBayit HaYehudi into the coalition, something that rumors before the election said Netanyahu did not want to do.

Netanyahu stated that his goals for this term are stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, peace negotiations with the Palestinians, possibly as a nod towards Tzipi Livni, to get her to join the coalition, equalizing the national burden, while notably adding, “without tearing the nation apart”, a rather obvious message to Shas, quoting back to them Rav Ovadia Yosef’s letter to Peres, perhaps as an indication that their joining the coalition should not be ruled out.

Netanyahu also said he will work to create more jobs, and fix the electoral system.

Netanyahu stated that he wants to create the widest possible national unity government.

Fooled by this poll?

Poll: Most right-wing Israelis would support Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem The principles of the agreement as presented to respondents were for two states – Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinians, with Palestinian refugees having the right to return only to their new country.

(Molad, the group behind this latest left-wing progressive poll, is a regurgitation other Israel-bashing bullies such as Breaking the Silence, Sheikh Jarah Solidarity, et al. with Avrum Burg which ‘merits’ the worship of Haaretz providing their headline status.)

But didn’t we just read that 67% of Israelis won’t divide Jerusalem? And didn’t we read this:

The May (five months ago!) data is from Tel Aviv University’s Walter Lebach Institute for Jewish-Arab Coexistence…  Some findings:
- 80 percent of Israelis don’t believe it’s possible to make peace with the Palestinians. Half of them don’t believe it’s ever possible to make peace, while half don’t believe it’s possible in the foreseeable future. About two-thirds support a diplomatic solution, but many more still eagerly buy the convenient argument that there’s no partner.
-Only about 20 percent of secular Jews see the demographic threat as an existential problem and only one-third believe the occupation and the settlements are creating a security threat to Israel.
- Nearly half the respondents consider Palestinian terror a major security problem;
- Within the Green Line, the number who consider themselves rightists or right-leaning has increased from 41 percent to 48 percent…

Previously in 2008, there was this:

Two-thirds of Israelis support a total or partial resumption of building communities in Judea and Samaria, according to a poll broadcast on Wednesday, as peace talks are due to restart in Washington.

Israpundit reminds us of this poll this past June:

A new poll shows a solid majority of Israelis – 64% – supports the continuation of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. The remaining 36% support a temporary freeze on Jewish construction there or a complete freeze of construction. While these numbers are unchanged from last year, this year’s poll shows a small increase compared to last year in the percentages of Israelis who think Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is a “truly Zionist deed” (64%) and that Judea and Samaria are the country’s security belt (57%)

You should be interested in this late 2010 survey in which respondents were asked (among many others) the following two questions:

“If during peace talks, Israel succeeds in reaching a permanent peace with the Palestinians that is backed by the United States and includes the evacuation of all of the settlements in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, in your opinion, should Israel sign or not sign such an agreement?”

And “if it includes only the evacuation of the settlements and territories […] that are outside the large settlement blocs, since the large blocs would remain in Israeli hands, in your opinion should Israel sign or not sign the agreement?”

The answers:

A large majority (72%) favors such negotiations, but only 33% think they are likely to bear fruit.   Is there a price for extending the construction freeze? A clear majority (74%) supports Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinian leadership recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people as a condition for extending the building freeze in the settlements…

Is there a price for peace? In return for a permanent peace with the Palestinians backed by the United States, half of the Jewish public are willing to evacuate settlements that lie beyond the large settlement blocs (a minority of 43% oppose this). However, only a minority (28%) thinks Israel should sign such an agreement and pay for it by evacuating all of the settlements in the territories (a majority of 65% oppose such an evacuation).

This past April,  in response to a question about the urgency of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace,

58% of the Jewish respondents and 51% of the Arab respondents defined the issue as urgent or very urgent. At the same time, 58% of the Jewish interviewees and 61% of the Arab ones saw no chance of ending the conflict in accordance with the “two states for two peoples” formula at the present time.

And earlier in January, it was found that

a large majority (76%) preferring that Israel remain a country with a Jewish majority, with one-quarter preferring that Israel continue to rule all of the Land of Israel west of the Jordan. Asked how they would respond if they knew that “continued Israeli rule over the West Bank would lead to one state for Jews and Arabs in the entire Land of Israel that would not have a Jewish majority,” the majority (63%) answered that in this case they would oppose continued rule in the territories. However, the majority (54%) did not agree with the claim that continued rule in the territories will result in a country without a Jewish majority. Some 54% believe that continued rule in the territories will not prevent Israel from remaining a Jewish and democratic state. In other words, the public indeed prefers that Israel be a Jewish state over continued rule over the whole Land of Israel, but most of it does not believe there is a contradiction between the two objectives.

To grab as many leftist votes as possible from Shelly Yachimovich, whose campaign focuses on social issues, Tzipi Livni is focusing her campaign on the political process with the Palestinians.  There are two components to her strategy: make the problems with the Palestinians worse, and then blame Netanyahu and his administration for them.

In the first stage, Livni contradicted the official Israeli line abroad that the Palestinians had unilaterally violated the Oslo Accords by going to the UN, announcing instead that the Israeli government was to blame for the move.

Then came Olmert, announcing at the Israel Business Conference that Netanyahu is leading the way to a third “intifada.”

Surely enough, their promise that a lack of progress in negotiations would lead to renewed violence by the Palestinians has already proven effective.  Following their pronouncements, predictions and descriptions of a new “intifada” started to hit the media with exquisite coordination.

Granted, neither Livni nor Olmert wants an “intifada.”  But—how did her advisers  put it?—“Livni has put the political process back on the agenda in Israel.”  The Palestinians aren’t idiots.  They do their reading about Israeli elections, and when someone puts in an order for an “intifada,” they’re eager not to disappoint.  Especially when the one putting in the order is a friend.  This explanation is offered—surprisingly—by Ron Ben Yishai in Yediot Acharonot, who is not known as a great fan of the Netanyahu government.  Further, he says, “Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) has one more clear goal that he is trying to achieve with threats of another “intifada”: strengthening the center and left in Israeli elections.”

Ben Yishai writes that Abu Mazen is planning articles in the Israeli media while taking care to generate tension and violence in the field, as the number of rock- and Molotov cocktail-throwing incidents increase substantially, with lives lost along the way.

As elections come closer, the level of violence increases.

Not convinced that there could be outright or even unspoken coordination between the Palestinians and Israeli politicians?

Unfortunately, this is nothing new.

In 2010, Netanyahu revealed before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Chaim Ramon had been sent by Shimon Peres to meet with Saeb Erekat and other Palestinian officials, and advised them against being overly eager to start negotiations with Netanyahu.  “You’ll get more from us.”  “Don’t compromise.”  “Wait till we’re in power.”

Ramon and Peres denied it.  But then Ayala Chason of Channel 1 broadcast an interview with the very credible source who had happened to overhear the conversation.

More and more, it seems that what we have here is a joint effort to produce an “intifada.”  Perhaps there are no secret meetings.  But there is an overt tango, albeit one in which the dancers are not quite touching.

Granted, you say, Ramon is always making trouble.  But Livni?  She’s ethical.  She’s innocent.  You can’t say such a thing about her without offering solid evidence.

Sorry, but the burden of proof is on her.  Livni should have gone to her good friends in the Palestinian leadership and said, “Don’t even think about starting an ‘intifada’ and expecting me to stay quiet.”  She should then have gone to the media and, just to dispel any doubts, announced that we all stand united with the administration against any and all threats of Palestinian violence.  “There will be no negotiations under conditions of violence.  Quite the opposite: if there is violence, we will call on the government to take punitive measures.”

The deafening silence that Livni and her people are maintaining in response to Palestinian threats is the smoking gun in the moral case against them.  Livni and Olmert’s use of Palestinian threats to affect election results, meanwhile, is less a smoking gun and more a ticking bomb.

Is it realistic to expect responsible leadership from Olmert?  After all, he and his children won’t pay the price of a new “intifada.”  That will be paid by Israelis driving along the roads of Judea and Samaria, such as Tziyona, the wife of musician Itzik Kala.  She was recently injured very severely in the head while driving toward Jerusalem on Beitar Road.

In the meantime, Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, and the rest of the Abus are pretty pleased with themselves.  Every now and then they toss another stick on the bonfire.  Another few rocks.  Another few Molotov cocktails.

Anything for friends.  Anything to keep the conflict in the headlines ahead of Israeli elections.

Yet the leaders of the right also are being too quiet.  They’ve got to expose and attack this cynical pre-election stunt by Livni and her fellow travelers.  They’ve got to tell them: The burden of proof is on you.  You need to go to the Palestinians and make it crystal clear to both them and the Israeli public that Molotov cocktails and rock-throwing are totally unacceptable to you.

It is intolerable that these people use Palestinian threats and terrorist attacks as part of an electoral strategy of intimidating the Israeli public, thus incentivizing further Palestinian violence. They must be told quite clearly and publicly that if they fail to show some civic responsibility now, then they will bear responsibility for the next “intifada” and its victims.

Originally published in Makor Rishon December 21, 2012.  Translated from Hebrew by David B. Greenberg.