There could hardly be a grimmer demonstration of the challenge facing those who still hope to curb growing violence in the occupied West Bank. This weekend’s talks between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs in Jordan were undermined within hours. These were the first such high-level negotiations in years, reflecting belated US re-engagement, in the unpromising context of a far-right Israeli government, a moribund Palestinian Authority and surging violence.
Within hours of the summit’s communique, hundreds of settlers were rampaging through the Palestinian town of Huwara with rocks and iron bars, shooting dead one man, leaving hundreds injured and torching cars and properties – retaliation for the murder of two Israeli settlers by a Palestinian gunman earlier that day.
