The familiar mood of despair

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The Israeli mindset of the continuation of the occupation and the expansion of the Jewish settlements is not changing. Representatives of the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service are wrangling endlessly with them about the fate of one roadblock in Jericho and about the control of a village and a half in the Tul Karm district. Most of the roadblocks have remained in place. In the villages in Samaria, there have been increasingly violent confrontations over the separation fence that is taking away their lands and livelihood, and in Jerusalem the authorities are completing the wall and preparing new restrictions on movement... To the project of the thousands of dwelling units in Ma'aleh Adumim and to the incidents involving the separation fence and the walls in Jerusalem has been added in recent days the tempest surrounding the deal by the Greek Orthodox Church, which has sold "hotels and shops that are Arab assets to extremist Jewish settlers" (in a Palestinian formulation). For them, of course, this is another step in Israel's moves to crush the Arab presence in Jerusalem and to judaize the city, to which are added reports of Jewish threats to the Al-Aqsa mosque. All of these are bringing back to the Palestinian street and leadership the old familiar mood of despair and bitterness that presages a new wave of bloody conflict.