There are no Palestine-Israel negotiations being held at the moment because Israeli preconditions kill them before they begin. The Palestinian side doesn't have any alternative to offer instead of negotiations, which means that the issue will remain in limbo unless there is a change in the balance of power on the ground.

The logical basis for negotiations has to be the importance of Israel's withdrawal from the land it has occupied since 1967 in return for the security demands it wants. However, Israel has switched from the issue of withdrawal to a plan to change borders, which will allow it to continue its occupation with new land in the West Bank.

Introduction

After decades of human suffering resulting from Israel's occupation and illegal colonisation of Palestinian territory; fruitless and stalled negotiations; moribund policies; and legal options being overlooked in favour of diplomacy, it is time to look at a new strategy using political action and negotiations based on international law.

Observers of the Palestine question note that some Western countries are openly pro-Israel, "right or wrong", and the so-called diplomacy of most does nothing for the Palestinian cause. Western diplomats, for example, almost always avoid declaring that Israeli settlements are illegal, breach international law and are an obstacle to peace. Sadly, the Palestinian Authority usually displays the same reluctance.

At least a quarter of a million Israelis protested in August over the cost of living. In Tel Aviv alone, 200,000 people took to the streets. The protests, however, were over more than simply against the high cost of basic essentials and housing: "The people demand social justice!" they cried. As the Occupy Wall Street protests grow around the world, it seems clear that demands for change in the economic stratification have arrived.

The question of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was raised after the Eilat incident and its aftermath when six Egyptian border police were killed by Israel. In response to public opinion, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces had to consider whether or not to cancel the treaty, or amend it in the light of the events on the border between the two countries. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced that his country was ready to discuss amending the treaty.

Generally opposed to any amendments in the past, when Israel needed to increase the number of its troops in areas adjacent to the Gaza Strip it sought separate agreement not amendment. Appendix I of the treaty concerns the "protocol on the withdrawal of Israel and security arrangements".

The former Director General of the Al-Jazeera Network became the first Muslim and non-Western journalist to deliver the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture at City University in London on Thursday. The anticipation buzzed through the crowd waiting to hear from Wadah Khanfar, one of the most influential figures in world journalism who had been at the helm of Al-Jazeera for 8 years, as the lecture theatre filled to capacity. A number of significant figures were in the audience, including journalists from the Guardian and the Financial Times as well as lecturers and media pundits. The high calibre of the audience highlighted just how significant Al-Jazeera under Khanfar's leadership has been in the development of journalism in the Arab world and beyond.

We have just passed the second anniversary of 'Operation Cast Lead', in which for many it seemed that the holiday period was used as a convenient cover for launching the attack on Gaza which led to 1400 Palestinian deaths, most of them civilians and one-third children. Most of the buildings - homes, shops, factories - destroyed on that occasion remain so, due to the blockade on building materials and many other items entering Gaza.

Meanwhile attempts to bring together the Palestinians and the right-wing government brought to power by last year's election in Israel in peace talks have foundered on Israeli unwillingness to end the building of settlements on Palestinian land. This despite enormous bribes in terms of $3bn worth of fighter planes plus other inducements being offered by the Obama administration in return for just three months extension of a freeze which was in any case honoured as much in the breach as the observance.

Violence, abuse, non-accountability, hate, such is communal living today within the occupied West Bank, where some 518,974 colonisers¹ sit within "200"² illegal settlements. Noam Chomsky, "The settlements cover over 42% of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), not counting the Jordon valley, which they are taking over"³ Estimates of colonisation vary from the 42% reported by Chomsky and BT Salem to that of Human Rights Watch who at 60% set the figure even higher.