It was, even by the dispiriting standards of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, a futile concept: a peace conference without either of the warring parties. On January 15th diplomats from more than 70 countries flew to Paris for a summit against which Israeli officials had been inveighing for weeks.
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Trump could be Israel's worst nightmare
It was a valedictory speech, irrelevant in a few weeks, but John Kerry’s much-anticipated remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were still a remarkable indictment. In a 75-minute address at the State Department on Wednesday, the secretary of state outlined a long list of reasons why the two-state solution was on its deathbed, and defended last week’s abstention from a controversial Security Council vote on Israeli settlements. He laid most of the blame on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government.
Read MoreThe age of the lone wolf intifada
A small crowd stands outside a synagogue, chanting “death to terrorists” and “revenge,” hours after two Palestinian men armed with knives, axes and a gun hacked worshippers to death. Four bodies are still inside, still wrapped in their bloodied prayer shawls. “This happened because we talk with terrorists,” says an angry mourner. “We can’t have peace while we allow terrorists to live in Jerusalem.”
Read MoreA 'declaration of war' in Jerusalem
After a week of photo ops and press conferences by Israeli police and politicians aimed at reassuring the public that Jerusalem is safe, tensions in this disputed city skyrocketed on Oct. 29 with the attempted assassination of right-wing activist Yehuda Glick, who was shot at close range after leaving a conference.
Read MoreThe death of sympathy
Pro-war demonstrators stand behind a police barricade in Tel Aviv, chanting, "Gaza is a graveyard." An elderly woman pushes a cart of groceries down the street in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and asks a reporter, "Jewish or Arab? Because I won't talk to Arabs." A man in Sderot, a town that lies less than a mile from Gaza, looks up as an Israeli plane, en route to the Hamas-ruled territory, drops a blizzard of leaflets over the town. "I hope that's not all we're dropping," he says.
Read MoreThe false front of the Gaza invasion
The day started with a cease-fire, and ended with a ground invasion. Israeli troops moved across the border into the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday night, the first large-scale ground offensive since a 2008-2009 war that killed more than 1,400 people and caused widespread destruction. The invasion, announced at around 10:30 p.m. local time, followed hours of heavy shelling aimed at clearing improvised explosive devices from the border.
Read MoreIs this Hamas' last war?
Down in the south there is a feeling of déjà vu: Israeli jets have dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Gaza, hundreds of rockets have been launched into Israel and troops are amassing along the border ahead of a possible ground invasion.
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