The language of diplomacy?

The last I heard, Prime Minister Netanyahu had agreed to halt the creation of new settlements but had every intention of allowing ongoing construction projects to expand existing ones. He also had no intention of halting what amounts to the slow but steady ethnic cleansing of east Jerusalem by evicting a few Palestinian families at a time from their homes and either turning the homes over to Israelis or bulldozing them. And that activity continues.

The Israeli government had previously responded to American pressure on the settlements by trotting out Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to announce that real peace was years away and they should concentrate on "a long-term interim arrangement that would ensure stability." And here I'd been thinking that the existing situation was already an interim arrangement. It's certainly been long-term.

I suspect that all that's changed now is the language that Clinton is using to describe the Israeli position. What were regarded as insufficient concessions a few weeks ago are now unprecedented. Obama's efforts on this file have stalled.

There's an interesting comparison to be made by looking at the way the Israeli newspaper Haaretz covered the same story. Here's the headline and lede:

Palestinians: U.S. keeping peace process paralyzed

Pointing an accusing finger at the United States, the Palestinians on Sunday said Washington's backing for Israeli refusal to halt Jewish settlement expansion had killed any hope of reviving peace negotiations soon.

Somehow that sense of optimism you might hope for based on Clinton's remarks seems to be missing.

Update:

And this time it's Haaretz that has rewritten their story by changing the headline and inserting several new paragraphs at the top. The new headline is "Jordan and Egypt accuse Israel of 'derailing' peace efforts" and since, as the story notes, those are the only two Arab countries that have concluded peace treaties with Israel I'm still looking for that sense of optimism.