SEEMINGLY, THE American understanding of Israel is much better. But not really.
Average American politicians and diplomats know a lot about Jews. Many of them are Jews. Kerry himself seems to be partly Jewish. His peace team includes many Jews, even Zionists, including the actual manager of the negotiations, Martin Indyk, who worked in the past for AIPAC. His very name is Yiddish (and means a Turkey).
The assumption is that Israelis are not very different from American Jews. But that is entirely false. Israel may claim to be the "Nation-State of the Jewish People," but that is only an instrument for exploiting the Jewish Diaspora and creating obstacles for the "peace process." In reality there is very little similarity between Israelis and the Jewish Diaspora, not much more than between a German and a Japanese.
Martin Indyk may feel an affinity with Tzipi Livni, the daughter of an Irgun fighter (or "terrorist" in British parlance), but that is an illusion. The myths and traumas that shaped Tzipi are very different from those that shaped Martin, who was educated in Australia.
If Barack Obama and Kerry knew more, they would have realized from the beginning that the present Israeli political setup makes any Israeli evacuation of the settlements, withdrawal from the West Bank and compromise about Jerusalem quite impossible.
ALL THIS is true for the Palestinian side, too.
Palestinians are convinced that they understand Israel. After all, they have been under Israeli occupation for decades. Many of them have spent years in Israeli prisons and speak perfect Hebrew. But they have made many mistakes in their dealings with Israelis.
The latest one was the belief that Israel would release the fourth batch of prisoners. This was almost impossible. All Israeli media, including the moderate ones, speak about releasing "Palestinian murderers," not Palestinian activists or fighters. Right-wing parties compete with each other, and with rightist "terror-victims," in denouncing this outrage.
Israelis do not understand the deep emotions evoked by the non-release of prisoners -- the national heroes of the Palestinian people, though Israel itself has in the past exchanged a thousand Arab prisoners for one single Israeli, citing the Jewish religious command of "redemption of prisoners."
It has been said that Israel always sells a "concession" three times: once when promising it, once when signing an official agreement about it and thirdly when actually fulfilling the undertaking. This happened when the time came to implement the third withdrawal from the West Bank under the Oslo agreements, which never happened.
Palestinians know nothing about Jewish history as taught in Israeli schools, very little about the holocaust, even less about the roots of Zionism.
RECENT NEGOTIATIONS started as "peace talks", continued about a "framework" for further negotiations, and now the talks have degenerated to talks about the talks about the talks.
Nobody wants to break off the farce, because all three sides are afraid of the alternative.
The American side is afraid of a general onslaught of the Zionist-evangelical-Republican-Adelson bulldozer on the Obama administration in the next elections. Already the State Department is frantically trying to retreat from the Kerry "poof." He did not mean that only Israel is to blame, they assert, the fault lies with both sides. The jailer and the prisoner are equally to blame.
As usual, the Israeli government has many fears. It fears the outbreak of a third intifada, coupled with a world-wide campaign of de-legitimization and boycott of Israel, especially in Europe.
It also fears that the UN, which at present recognizes Palestine only as a non-member state, will go on and promote it more and more.
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