As Palestinian and Israeli negotiators meet tomorrow in the White House to begin a new round of direct talks under the auspices of the White House, we wish them luck but don’t hold out much hope. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, successive administrations are unable to learn a simple lesson: insufficient pressure on Israel yields little chance for peace.

Two Israeli demands are likely to doom these talks to failure. First, Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas, the Palestinian party that has won the largest number of votes in the 2006 elections. Ironically, it demands that Hamas agree to preconditions before entering talks while insisting that the PLO enter talks without any preconditions, including on settlements.

The second reason obstructing the impending talks is Israel’s continued settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. If it seems inconceivable to you that the Palestinians negotiate with Israel about a future Palestinian state as Israel continues to settle its citizens there, you are not alone. If it seems a bit déjà vu, you are not mistaken.

In the nineties, the decade of peace talks, beginning with the Madrid talks and the Oslo peace accords and culminating with the failure at the Camp David summit, the number of settlers increased from 250,000 in 1991 to 420,000 in 2000. The Palestinians rejected Israel’s insincere proposal at Camp David, reached under pressure from President Clinton and widely touted as a generous offer by Israel.

In 2000, after ten years of negotiations and a 70% increase of the settler population, the Palestinians were offered 73% of the West Bank, bisected by Israeli roads and without East Jerusalem.

Today, 520,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, constituting 10% of Israel’s Jewish population. Congress, cowed by Israel’s extremist lobby, has effectively scuttled efforts by the Obama administration to stop Jewish settlements, resulting in an impartial 10-month settlement freeze, excluding East Jerusalem.

The Cordoba Initiative’s effort to build a mosque near ground zero has highlighted a widening rift between the United States and Islam. The conflation of Islam and terrorism is discrimination against the Muslim citizens of the United States and severely hampers our national interests abroad. American citizens should work to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which, we believe, is the root cause of tensions between the United States and the world’s Muslims. Support NewPolicy.org in engaging our political system for the cause of peace and reconciliation.

Jewish settlements constitute a grave threat to US national interests and to American policy objectives in the Middle East. Funding of settlement projects in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by domestic organizations harms our security and moral standing. Furthermore, these domestic settler organizations are subsidized by US taxpayer money. However, they are subject to US anti-discrimination laws and the US Criminal Code. Congress, the Obama administration and the Treasury Department should implement existing US laws against these organizations.

NewPolicy.org condemns Israel’s attack on humanitarian ships sailing from Europe to end the Gaza blockade. The attack on the Freedom Flotilla demonstrates Israel’s increasing isolation on the global stage. NewPolicy.org calls on Congress and the Obama administration to publicly condemn Israel’s actions to pro-peace and humanitarian activists of whom nine were killed and scores were injured in Israel’s botched operation. The president and Congress should also move swiftly to end the siege on Gaza, which has placed undue burden on Gaza’s population, 80% of whom rely on food distribution while 50% remain unemployed. Furthermore 15% of Gaza children have experienced abnormal growth for their age, stunting, an early sign of starvation.

Progressive Marcy Winograd challenges Congresswoman Jane Harman in the Southern California primaries of District 36. New Policy PAC endorses Winograd for her outspoken positions on ending the blockade on Gaza, freezing Jewish settlements, establishing a just resolution whether a one state or two state solution and pushing for negotiations on Iran instead of sanctions and war. 

Marcy Winograd’s campaign comes down to more jobs for America and less war. Please support Marcy Winograd’s campaign by contributing at our website or by sending a check to New Policy PAC.

In the past week there has been a flurry of activity around the renewed possibility of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As frustration mounts over the interminable peace process and the glaring futility of the proximity talks, two American authors, an Israeli leftist and a Likud member of the Knesset publicly endorse the one-state solution as the most likely settlement (if not the best) in the same twenty-four hour period.

The rising chorus in support of a binational state is the culmination of the decades-long failure to separate the Palestinians and Israelis into two different nations. NewPolicy.org calls on the Obama administration and Congress to act quickly to end the occupation with all its crushing injustice and horrific violence, recognizing that a one-state solution is another viable option as facts on the ground continue to render the two-state solution unworkable.