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| The intransigence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters may lead to the gradual reunification of the Palestinian people. |
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, is in the United States this week, but few observers expect an immediate or significant breakthrough in the stalled peace talks with the Palestinian leadership.
In public, Netanyahu maintains he is committed to the pledge he made last year, shortly after he formed his right-wing government, to work towards the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state.
But so far he has proved either unwilling or unable to renew even a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank -- a key condition set by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, for reviving the negotiations.
Most of Netanyahu's cabinet, including Avigdor Lieberman, his foreign minister, barely conceal their opposition to Palestinian statehood. Instead, Netanyahu has imposed a precondition of his own: that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
A leading analyst of Palestinian politics says the picture is not as bleak for the Palestinians as it might appear.
Asad Ghanem, a professor of political science at Haifa University, predicts Netanyahu and his cabinet will eventually come to rue their obduracy.
The intransigence and the unabashed espousal of "an ideology of Jewish supremacy" by Netanyahu and his supporters will lead to the gradual "reunification" of the Palestinian people, Dr. Ghanem said in an interview.
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