Netanyahu’s vocabulary consists of the word ‘No’

In the eight years US President Barack Obama has occupied the White House, there has been little appetite in his administration to bring about a lasting and just resolution to the long-standing question of Palestine. While Secretary of State John Kerry did initially try to get things moving early in Obama’s second term, the reality of Israel’s sheer intransigence on its illegal occupation of Palestine and the subjugation of its people meant that that effort failed a litmus test when it came to veracity. Besides, the Obama administration was more focused on reaching a deal to end international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, and pre-occupations with Iraq, Syria and the rise of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), as well as a deterioration in relations with Russia over Ukraine, put paid to any serious attempts to negotiate a lasting peace on Palestine. That US initiative died an inevitable death in April, 2014.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave little consideration to any peace deal with the Palestinians, and he launched two separate murderous full-scale military invasions on the Gaza Strip in 2012 and 2014 — attacks that killed more than 2,500 Palestinians — without fear of international condemnation or consequence. And with the US and its western allies occupied elsewhere, Netanyahu has used the void to propagate Israel’s colonisation process in occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

On Monday, with the world now focused on the outcome of the election to find Obama’s successor, Netanyahu has once more used the moment to reiterate his firm opposition to a French plan to hold an international conference before the end of the year to restart long-stalled peace efforts with the Palestinians.

The Netanyahu government says it wants only direct talks with the Palestinian National Authority without the involvement of France — or anyone else, in what it wrongly believes is an internal matter. The reality is that such a scenario can never be legitimate nor acceptable to the international community: The history of the Israeli government has been one of acts of oppression, imprisonment, coercion, intimidation and state-sponsored violence against the Palestinian people, their heritage, history and religion.

Palestinians now struggle to pray at Al Haram Al Sharif while international agreements to guarantee access are dismissed, or watch a new tram travel through their occupied east Jerusalem neighbourhoods linking new colonies built on foundations that were Palestinian fields. And as long as the Netanyahu government holds sway and has a $36-billion (Dh132.23 billion) cash guarantee from Washington, there’s little prospect of any just peace.