4 Israelis Shot Dead By Hamas Terrorist Jihadists In West Bank As Negotiations Between PA And Israel Are Being Set To Begin

The Jerusalem Post reports that four "Israelis were killed Tuesday night in a shooting attack in the West Bank believed to have been aimed at torpedoing the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, set to kick off on Wednesday in Washington. The four victims, described by a settler spokesman as a couple and two hitchhikers – were driving on Route 60 near the entrance to Kiryat Arba when their vehicle came under fire. The victims were named as Yitzhak Ames, 47, and his wife Tali Ames, 45, Kochava Ben- Haim, 37, and Avishai Schindler, 24, all from Beit Hagai. The Ames couple had six children, including a oneand- a-half-year-old toddler."

The innocent victims were shot while driving, and they include 2 men and 2 women, one reportedly pregnant. The jihad attack comes before Netanyahu and Abbas are set to meet in Washington for peace talks, which are doomed for failure from the outset. This should send a message to Washington about why Israel cannot make any concessions in exchange for nothing in regards to the West Bank. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and Lebanon today stands in the grasp of the terrorist Islamists of Hezbollah. Israel withdrew every settler and soldier from Gaza, and Gaza today is in the hands of the terrorist Islamists of Hamas. To make concessions on the West Bank would do nothing but further endanger Israeli security. The political realities on the ground are not ripe for peace talks, and are not at all similar to the state of affairs in 2000 when Yasser Arafat met with Ehud Barak at Camp David. After the Palestinians rejected a generous peace offer they instead launched the bloody jihadist Intifada. Israel today is less secure than it was in 200 with the Iranian armed and supplied Hezbollah and Hamas on the northern and southern borders with which there have already been military confrontations. There is no longer the unified leadership under Yasser Arafat, but a weaker Abbas in control of the West Bank and Gaza exclusively in the hands of Hamas. Further, the looming threat of a nuclear Iran exists today as it did not ten years ago, and this is no doubt Israel's top priority.

I project no meaningful agreement can be attained at this time, and the only possible result will be extracting further dangerous concessions from Israel. The Obama administration wasting political capitol and pressure when the likelihood of failure is so great is a disastrous policy choice. The consequences of such a failure to achieve an agreement can be the undermining of Abbas’s political position among his fellow Palestinians and the strengthening of Hamas, as well as increasing global hostility to Israel. It seems to me that a sane American policy would be to avoid such direct peace talks rather than make calls and require direct negotiations. Tweet