The only peace Netanyahu wants comes from a total capitulation of the Palestinians and annexation by Israel of most of the West Bank.

He doesn't give a damn what any US administration says about it. He knows AIPAC can keep the congress in line. And on that he is correct.

Request, on behalf of Palestinians, comes after Israel announces settlement construction plan as violence in area escalates.

By The Associated Press and Jack Khoury | Oct. 28, 2014 | 10:30 AM

A spokesman for Jordan's mission to the United Nations said on Monday his country will request an emergency UN Security Council meeting on behalf of the Palestinians, who have written to the council president about "dangerously escalating tensions" in East Jerusalem.

Laith Ibrahim Obeidat confirmed the request in a message and said his country, a council member, will ask the council president to set a date.

Earlier Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he was pushing forward plans for 1,060 new housing units in Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, including in East Jerusalem, despite stiff international criticism and recent rising violence between Jews and Arabs in the capital. He then told lawmakers that he was "committed to construction in every part of Judea and Samaria [West Bank]."

The U.S. and the European Union condemned the decision, with State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki saying Washington was "deeply concerned" by reports of Netanyahu's plans.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.623128

Amid mounting tensions between the United States and Israel over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Iran’s nuclear program, Obama administration officials are bluntly expressing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, assailing Netanyahu as a “chickenshit” and a “coward.”

Those jibes come in a new piece by Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, who concludes that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is in a perilous position. Goldberg points to “the comatose peace process” and Netanyahu’s strident opposition to a U.S. deal with Iran over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. With an impending November deadline for a comprehensive nuclear agreement and a very real possibility that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will seek full United Nations recognition of Palestinian next year, the coming months are all but witness an escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Israel. And administration officials are scathing in their assessment of their Israeli interlocutor.

Referring to Netanyahu by his nickname, a “senior Obama administration official” told Goldberg, “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit.”

The administration, Goldberg reports, doesn’t read too much into Netanyahu’s public bluster. They see him more as a man preternaturally obsessed with his political survival — “a no-vision small-timer,” as Goldberg puts it, whose primary focus is placating his right-wing political coalition. (Hence actions like yesterday’s announcement that Netanyahu had fast-tracked the construction of more than 1,000 new apartments in East Jerusalem.) When it comes to Netanyahu’s threats of military action against adversaries like Iran, however, the administration sees Netanyahu as all bark and little bite.

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/28/hes_a_chickenst_obama_administration_official_unloads_on_benjamin_netanyahu/

Again, how that translates for the Palestinians in the end, is the worry.

Thanks for posting.

Every time I chew it over in my head, I realize I have no idea what is going on.

There is a revolution going on in Yemen, near as I can tell, and Iran seems to be tight with the revolutionaries, who are Fiver Shi'ia. And we are helping the revolutionaries by droning AQAP forces the revolutionaries are fighting. This ought to freak various people out. But nobody seems to be paying much attention.

Perhaps we have reached the maximum number of crises that any one person can pay attention to.

When it comes to the I/P issue, I keep coming back to the weakness of the ME which
prompted Kerry's plan in the first place and things are even worse in the ME now than
two years ago. I doubt very much Obama is going to walk away from this opportunity
with Bibi. Kerry and Obama both equally too smart to pass on it. As always, the concern is how
it ends up, a viable state or not. EU wants it over too, real bad.

That's going to upset a lot of applecarts. But on the other hand you wonder why it took so long too.

"I'm not questioning it. I'm denying it's very existence!"