U.S. special envoy George Mitchell has been frantically shuttling between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in order to salvage the month-old direct negotiations. The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has also been recruited to throw the weight of the EU behind the peace efforts. Even President Obama himself has been personally involved, trying to find "common ground between the parties."

In fact, in order to secure Israel's support for a sixty-day settlement building moratorium extension, the Obama administration, in a draft letter, has offered a string of assurances to Israel ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached. The details of the letter were published on the Washington Institute for Near East Policy website by senior researcher David Makovsky. According to Haaretz, The United States is reportedly incensed over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of the draft letter.

Equally incensed is the head of the Palestinian negotiation team, Saeb Erekat, who said on Wednesday that "there are no half-way solutions on the settlements issue." Erekat and other PA officials have been recently hinting at a Palestinian walk out on the negotiations if Israel refuses to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. This decision could happen as early as Saturday when the Palestinian leadership meets, and be officially announced at the Arab League meeting in Cairo next week.

To make matters worse, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in a West Bank settlement, revived his plan for "population exchange" before the UN General Assembly.

Lieberman, who heads the second largest party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, called for an "intermediate" accord with the Palestinians because it will take "a few decades" to establish the trust needed for a so-called final-status agreement. He suggested ceding parts of Israel with large Arab populations to a future Palestinian state in exchange for Israel keeping large settlement blocs in the West Bank, a proposal which has been part of his party's platform.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from the speech, but many Palestinians believe that this is part of a well-coordinated 'good cop, bad cop' strategy. They also regard the remarks as incitement and advocacy of ethnic cleansing.

A recent poll released by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center revealed that fifty-four percent of respondents said that the direct talks serve the national interests of the Palestinians. However, 58% said they believed the Palestinian leadership agreed to hold the talks because of external pressure, and more than 55% said they did not expect the talks to produce major changes in the status quo.

But there are rapid changes happening on the ground. Israeli building crews have already resumed work the day after the settlement freeze expired at several settlements, such as Ariel, Oranit, Tekoa and Adam. The building has actually never stopped in many other settlements. In the West Bank, there are more than 300,000 Jewish settlers living in around 100 settlements built adjacent to Palestinian towns and villages and are protected by the Israeli army. Approximately, 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Jewish settlers account for just one percent of the population of the West Bank, according to Dutch cartographer Jan de Jong, but are claiming 60 percent of the land.

"They are just one percent of the whole West Bank population, but they are claiming 60 percent of the land. The settlements are actually just built-up pockets, but the settlers include huge tracts of land around them by laying down barbed wire. So in effect it's more like estates, containing just a few houses."

De Jong who has been monitoring changes on the ground through satellite imagery and other means, says that construction was going on in the settlements even during the 10-month building moratorium which has just expired. "There was building work every day, except on Jewish holidays. That's why I call it a virtual moratorium."

The way things are progressing now, should the "direct talks" continue, a virtual Palestinian state might be the end result.

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Direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis are scheduled to commence in Washington on September 2, a decade after the last real final-status talks, and nearly two years after the last direct talks. Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu will come face to face for dinner and talks in Washington as guests of President Obama after 18 months of shuttle diplomacy and indirect "proximity talks" headed by Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell.

President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, along with Tony Blair, the special representative of the Middle East Quartet are also due to join the inaugural session in Washington.

While much hope has been placed on these

talks culminating in an agreement within a year, most Palestinians and Israelis remain skeptical of their success. More importantly, hopes and expectations have been inflated in some media reports, adding confusion and creating myths about what might turn up only to be yet another photo op in DC.

Here are some of the myths:

Myth No.1- They're not talking

Although Abbas and Netanyahu have not sat face to face for the past eighteen months, contacts and cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government have not ceased on several fronts, most notably in commerce and security.

Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, spoke at the Herzliya Conference in February alongside Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at a time when his boss, President Mahmoud Abbas was insisting on a

total halt to settlement construction before peace talks could resume. Also, Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces senior officials have made several visits to Ramallah for meetings with senior PA officials and members of the Palestinian security services. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin recently spent a day in the West Bank city of Jenin as a guest of the Palestinian Authority's security service.

This is Diskin's second visit of this kind to Palestinian Authority territory in recent months, the aim of which is to coordinate security ties between Israel and the PA. The first visit was to Ramallah.

Myth No. 2- Settlement Freeze

Settlement construction is "business as usual" in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Although a few projects were pushed back, construction on existing projects continues unabated. Close to half a million Israeli Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. More importantly, settlers have accelerated their activities taking over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, in Arab neighborhoods in Sheikh Jarrah, Shu'fat, and Silwan. Furthermore, in 2010, more than 240 Palestinian homes have been destroyed in Area C of the West Bank compared to 182 in all of 2009.

Myth No. 3- Security Fears

Israel's concern over security in the West Bank is exaggerated. Today the Palestinian Authority is policing the West Bank on behalf of the IDF. Very few Israeli deaths, only two in 2010, have been registered due to attacks in the West Bank. In comparison, far more Palestinians have been killed and injured by settlers and the IDF in 2010. Rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have also subsided. Israel's main security concern these days is Iran.

"The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world," Netanyahu said in November 2009, repeating variations on this statement on several occasions.

Myth No. 4- Abbas & Netanyahu can deliver peace

Neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor President Abbas have the mandate to deliver a peace agreement. Netanyahu would face strident opposition from within his Likud party and fierce opposition from his own foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who has the ability and influence to unravel his fragile coalition.

Abbas also faces a complex problem of legitimacy. His term as President has expired, and under his watch, Palestinian unity was fractured when Hamas managed to route out his forces from Gaza.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said recently that Abbas was too weak to stand up to Israel and negotiate a just deal at the talks in Washington.

"If the talks succeed they will succeed to Israeli standards and liquidate the Palestinian cause. They'll give us parts of 1967 lands. They'll draw the borders as they want and they'll confiscate our sovereignty," said Meshaal

Myth No. 5- No preconditions

Prime Minister Netanyahu insisted for many weeks that he was ready to come to the negotiating table in Washington, but without "preconditions." In fact both he and President Mahmoud Abbas have already announced preconditions, raising expectations and laying the groundwork for failure.

Among the preconditions laid out by Netanyahu for peace with the Palestinians is recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians consider this condition as a non-starter, instead they'd like to delve into sensitive areas such as the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied territory, the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and the right of return, issues that will be difficult to overcome.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas has declared that he will withdraw from negotiations if settlement activity resumes. The settlement moratorium is due to expire on Sept. 26. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems unlikely to extend it.

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Will it be a strike against Iran by the U.S. and or Israel? Will there be political upheaval in Egypt after Mubarak's reign? And will Israel invade Lebanon or Gaza? These are some of the questions that can be heard on the streets of Cairo, Amman, and Beirut.

2010 is far from over, yet we have witnessed a series of close encounters in the Middle East that created major tensions and pushed everyone to the edge: a war on the Yemeni Saudi border, rapid deterioration of relations between Israel and Turkey over the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, skirmishes between Israel and Lebanon over the cutting of a tree, and the looming prospect of an attack on Iran to mention a few. But what's really troubling is how fast attitudes have changed towards President Obama from a year ago; specifically in the period after newly-elected Barack Obama delivered his "New Beginning" speech to the Arab and Muslim worlds from a podium at the University of Cairo in Egypt.

Just yesterday, on Thursday, August 5, a poll released by the Brookings Institute in conjunction with Zogby International revealed a substantial change in the assessment of President Obama, both as President of the United States and of Obama personally. According to the poll, early in the Obama Administration, in April and May 2009, 51% of the respondents in six Arab countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates) expressed optimism about American policy in the Middle East. In the 2010 poll, only 16% were hopeful, while a majority - 63% - were discouraged.

The poll's results show another dramatic shift in public opinion on Iran's potential nuclear weapons status. While the results vary from country to country, the weighted average across the six countries is telling: in 2009, only 29% of those polled said that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons would be "positive" for the Middle East; in 2010, 57% of those polled indicate that such an outcome would be "positive" for the Middle East.

So what's wrong with earlier assessments that Arab countries were "freaked out" by a nuclear Iran?

Unfortunately the US government, and to a larger extent western reporters, have been spoon-fed this information by intelligence apparatuses of certain despotic Arab regimes. No one bothered to ask the average person on the street this question.

Although the poll was conducted before Obama's recent confirmation of the end of all combat operations in Iraq by the end of August, Arabs believe that the troubles of Iraq are far from being over. July has been a very deadly month in Iraq.

Recently, Saddam Hussein's former deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, has accused the US president of "leaving Iraq to the wolves."

Last but not least: "Palestine is still the issue" to borrow from John Pilger's title. The poll leaves little doubt that the major decline in Obama's popularity has a lot to do with the disappointment in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Arabs have lost hope that President Obama will be able to deliver on his promises.

I've been in and out of the Middle East five times this year, and if tension could be described as a cloud, you'd need a knife to cut through the one created by recent political events in the region. Everyone seems edgy and expecting war. President Obama must act fast to bring back some of the magic he had early on in the region with his messages of "hope" and "change". Now he needs to deliver on real promises before it is too late.

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First came the clash at Davos in January 2009, when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked off the stage after an angry exchange with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres during a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program, followed by the Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which sailed under Turkish flags, sending shockwaves throughout the world. Most recently, Turkey and Brazil have become the only countries that voted against UN sanctions to impede Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons capabilities.

There was a time when Turkey had looked west and never looked back. Some say that the drift began in 2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP), rooted in the country's Islamist movement, came to power. But others, like the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, lay the blame for Turkey's increasing independence squarely on European states opposed to Turkey's EU accession process, which has ground to an almost complete halt since it kicked off in 2005.

"I personally think that if there is anything to the notion that Turkey is, if you will, moving eastward, it is, in my view, in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought," he said.

This assessment has merits; the reality is that some EU member states - notably France, Germany and Austria - have become openly hostile to Turkish membership in recent years. France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, have stated that they would prefer Turkey to be granted what they call a 'privileged partnership' with the EU, instead of full membership. This came as a shock and an insult to the Turkish government and people, who had witnessed Eastern European countries, once hostile to the West ascend to the EU.

But why shouldn't Turkey look east?

Trade between Turkey and all 22 members of the Arab League has more than doubled over the past five years to just under $30 billion a year, still a fraction of its trade with the EU. However, since the recent global economic downturn, coupled with the collapse of the Euro, Turkish economists have been urging the government to expand its trade with the Middle East and the Far East.

Turkey recently signed a deal with Arab neighbors Syria, Jordan and Lebanon to establish a cooperation council to create a zone of free movement of goods and people. Although the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the deal should not be seen as an alternative to the European Union, he invited all other interested countries to join.

In addition, with Turkey having no energy resources of its own, Iran is its second biggest source of energy imports after Russia, supplying roughly one-third of Turkey's total natural gas consumption last year, 10 billion cubic meters.

The West's loss of Turkey has frightening strategic consequences, as was evident in Turkey's stance on Iran. Its stance against Israel has also embarrassed U.S.-allied Arab states such as Egypt, which have shied away from confronting Israel despite popular demands to do so. Since his Justice and Development party (AKP) came to power in 2002, Erdogan has been accused by his detractors that he is trying to reclaim the former "grandeur" of Turkey's Ottoman Empire era. Did he succeed?

Perhaps not, but in Egypt, a reader of al-Masry al-Youm newspaper dubbed Erdogan as the "Caliph of the Muslims" in comments posted on its website, and his namesake is now popular with newborns in Gaza.

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As thousands of outraged demonstrators poured into the streets of Ankara and several capitals across the globe in the aftermath of Israel's bloody attack on an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip early Monday, an Israeli sergeant stood in front of reporters claiming that the activists on board "were armed with knives, scissors, pepper spray and guns." He said he was armed only with a paintball rifle.

"It was a civilian paintball gun that any 12-year-old can play with," he said; yet, at least nine activists were killed, including a 19-year-old American who was shot in the head four times, and scores were injured.

Soon after, a video was released on the official website of the Israel Defense Forces and was made available to the media. It showed Israeli paratroopers jumping onto the international Gaza aid flotilla; a clip showing IDF commandos being beaten as they boarded the ship and one thrown overboard was looped endlessly. The military video did not show how and when the activists were shot, although the Israeli helicopters' infrared cameras would have easily recorded the flashes caused by gun discharge. Instead, the IDF has selectively released only a portion of the tape that showed its commandos under attack but has omitted the killings. Both Al Jazeera and reporters from Turkish TV news channels were reporting that the Marmara was under gunfire.

The "lynch" scenario came next. The victims were not the nine dead activists, nor the dozens of internationals who were beaten, humiliated, and dragged against their will to the Israeli port of Ashdod, instead they were the IDF's finest. What a departure from the days of Entebbe, when Hollywood made legends out of Israeli commandos.

Israel's Foreign Ministry then started showing pictures of sticks, knives, slingshots, and bottles which they said were the activists' weapons. The message is that several hundred activists gathered from all over the world to confront one of the best equipped and trained militaries in the world with these. But we are then told that the activists weren't really activists at all, but rather terrorists with ties to Hamas and al-Qaeda.

Yediot Ahronoth, one of Israel's most widely circulated papers broke with the headlines, "A Brutal Ambush at Sea." Arutz Sheva, the official news site of the settler movement attacked Associated Press for its "biased" reporting with an article entitled "Media War on the Flotilla Clash: AP Anti-Israel Bias Exposed." And the IDF website had this blaring story: "Attackers of the IDF soldiers are found to be Al Qaeda mercenaries," later to be reported in the Jerusalem Post as, "IDF: Mercenaries to blame for violence."

Israel's hasbara at its best. But is it working?

"Hasbara is only succeeding in Israel," says veteran journalist David Michaelis.

Michaelis believes that there is a disconnect between the way Israel sees itself and its actions, and the way they are viewed by the rest of the world.

"That was not a love boat. That was a boat of hatred," said Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A nice sound bite for FOX News, and headlines for the New York Post but this time hasbara is not working...not after the War on Lebanon, Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and a Mossad assassination caught on tape in Dubai.

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The Israeli government's recent announcement of Army order No. 1,650 was just the latest act of provocation in a series of calculated measures to derail any possible resumption of peace negotiations. Under this new draconian measure, anyone who doesn't have a "permit" to be in the West Bank is to be considered an "infiltrator" and subject to expulsion or risk up to seven years in jail.

Expulsions and deportations are not something new for the Israeli military administrative system which was established in 1969, shortly after the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War. At the time, the Israeli military was given the legal power to expel "infiltrators" without trial for various unspecified "security reasons."

Two particular Palestinian communities will be impacted by order No. 1,650: Palestinians with Gaza residencies and Palestinians with East Jerusalem residencies, as well as foreign-born residents of the West Bank. But many Palestinian and Israeli experts believe that it's the foreigners living amongst Palestinians who are the real target of the Netanyahu government. Many believe that this is part of an ongoing Israeli effort to silence dissent and crack down on international solidarity members and activists who travel to Palestinian areas to support protests and rallies, often bringing with them the eyes of the outside world.

Now that Israel has almost completed its "Separation Wall", it wants to build a "Wall of Silence" and control the flow of information and limit the presence of foreign-born eyewitnesses on the ground. The question is, why now?

A "White Intifada" has begun to take hold in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Every Thursday and Friday, Palestinian peace activists, accompanied by members of the Israeli Peace Now movement, as well as international supporters, gather to demonstrate against what they term as Israel's "Apartheid Wall" and land and home confiscations in the villages of Bil'in, Naalin, and the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Volunteers from B'Tselem( the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), document by video suspected violations of human rights by members of the security forces during those protests.

Two months ago, I witnessed a Friday demonstration in Sheikh Jarah where settlers tried to provoke peaceful demonstrators by harassing and spitting on them while Israeli Police and border patrol units watched from across the street. I was impressed by the demonstrators' calm and unfazed demeanor. Similarly, at the villages of Bil'in and Naalin, peaceful demonstrators have been brutally beaten and arrested by the Israeli army. Nevertheless, more keep coming back every week.

In February a Czech volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement was taken in the night from her house in Ramallah and deported by Israeli forces. This new order will give a blanket legal cover to the Israeli police and army to instantly deport foreign activists and aid workers spotted at demonstrations. Last December, at another demonstration I covered at Erez (Gaza-Israel Crossing), Israeli police did not engage the peaceful demonstrators who gathered calling for an end of the siege on Gaza. Instead, policemen were busy videotaping those who showed up, especially foreign nationals. Interestingly enough my Israeli Press Card was indefinitely delayed for renewal after my coverage of that story, but that's another subject on its own.

For years I've been hearing the popular question usually posed by Americans, "Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?"

During the past two trips that I've made to the Palestinian territories and Israel, I think that I discovered him/her in the eyes of the many peaceful demonstrators against the Israeli occupation. Nonviolent resistance could be the biggest threat to Israel's ability to justify it's continued military aggression and occupation of Palestinian lands. Order No. 1,650 is to neutralize the movement by deporting Gandhi.

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The dreaded "A-Word" has once again made its way into Israeli media, not by a leftist "self-hating Jew", but by a prominent Israeli politician, the Minister of Defense, who is a decorated soldier and a former prime minister as well. "A" is for Apartheid.

An awful word that evokes awful memories, presumably left behind in the annals of history in places such as Soweto and Cape Town. A word that has invited rage, insults, and attacks against a former US president who received a Nobel Peace Prize.

This past Tuesday, however, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that if Israel does not achieve a peace deal with the Palestinians, it will have to become a binational state or be an undemocratic apartheid one if it remains as it is.

"The simple truth is, if there is one state" including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, "it will have to be either binational or undemocratic. ... if this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state," Barak said at the Herzliya Conference north of Tel Aviv.

Though rarely used by Israeli leaders in connection to the Palestinians, the term "apartheid" is becoming more common to describe the current reality on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

More than two years ago, on the anniversary of the 1947 UN partition plan that would have divided British mandate Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned of this same scenario. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Ehud Olmert said Israel was "finished" if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights.

If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished".

But veteran Israeli journalist David Michaelis believes that a South African-style apartheid system has already emerged due to Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories.

"What Ehud Barak intended to do is to send a stark warning that Israel is heading towards a binational situation; however, we are already in a binational situation, and an apartheid system that's working very well for the Israeli military and government."

Five years ago David Michaelis and I jointly interviewed Palestinians and Israelis about the prospect of a binational state. Most Palestinians we spoke to then were thinking of independence and most Israelis were thinking of separation. At the time, the Israeli government was frantically building the Separation Wall, and only a handful of Israelis entertained the idea of binational coexistence. One such person we interviewed who predicted what Ehud Barak is currently cautioning of was Meron Benvenisti, a former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.

Benvenisti has recently published an elaborate article in Ha'aretz chronicling how Israel became a de facto binational regime.

"The attempt to mark the settlements, and the settlers, as the major impediment to peace is a convenient alibi, obfuscating the involvement of the entire Israeli body politic in maintaining and expanding the regime of coercion and discrimination in the occupied territories, and benefiting from it," he argued.

According to him, the violent events of the (second) intifada brought the Jewish-Israeli public to a crossroads in relation to their neighbors-enemies. Benvenisti argues that Israeli-Jews turned their backs on the Palestinians, erasing them from their consciousness and imprisoning them behind impenetrable walls, and became willing to congregate in a ghetto and pray that the Mediterranean might dry up or a bridge be built to connect them with Europe.

"This mentality is manifested in two, recently constructed, architectural monuments whose symbolism transcends their functional value: The gigantic Separation Wall and the colossal Ben Gurion air terminal. The former is meant to hide the Palestinians and erase them from Israeli consciousness and the latter serves as an escape gateway."

David Michaelis concurs and believes that most Israelis prefer to live in denial and avoid the subject of apartheid.

"The peace process is a misnomer, and the word occupation is misleading because it's really about systematic control."

How long can Israelis live in this denial and pretend that apartheid-like conditions do not exist?

Well you've heard the expression, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."

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EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Border- They came in buses and cars from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Galilee: Palestinians, Israelis, and few international activists. They waved Palestinian flags and carried banners chanting in Arabic and Hebrew: "Break the Siege," "Set Gaza Free," and "Down with Netanyahu and Mubarak."

"Welcome to Erez Crossing Point," the sign reads in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The ultimate irony, as no one is allowed to cross in or out except for a lucky few, such as diplomats and aid workers, or the unlucky ones who suffer from terminal illnesses. The rest of the 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants remain caged in like animals in the largest open air prison on earth, called Gaza.

Eighty-six international activists were allowed to enter the Strip last night from Egypt through Rafah. We were told that they too, accompanied by hundreds of Gazans, were chanting and waving on the other side of the border, but we could not see or hear them. Between them and us were a few hundred meters, a wall, a steel gate, and armed Israeli soldiers.

More than a thousand activists from around 40 countries remained in Cairo after the Egyptian government declined them entry due to the "sensitive situation" in the Palestinian territory. When was it not a "sensitive situation" in Palestine?

Several of their members were forcibly detained in hotels around Cairo, as well as violently forced into pens in Tahrir Square by Egyptian police and security forces.

The scene in Erez was like something from a movie set: chanters to the left of the gate, reporters to the right, and the Israeli Police and Border Patrol in the middle. There were no scuffles or confrontations, except for an argument between a Palestinian from Jaffa and Bedouin manning the "Free Gilad Shalit" tent.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" yells the Palestinian, who called him a "house Arab." A shouting match ensues, and the reporters, along with their cameramen shove and elbow their way to capture the scene.

Last year, I covered the war from the same vantage point. Journalists were prevented entry into Gaza by the Israeli military. I returned that evening to East Jerusalem where Palestinians huddled around television screens to watch the carnage in Gaza. On New Years Day, I awoke with a news hangover. Israeli jets were pounding Gaza for the sixth continuous day, and the Israeli military was building up its forces along the border in preparation for a ground incursion. I can still hear the sound of the jets screeching above.

The prison gate opens momentarily, and an old Palestinian man is being pushed on a wheelchair past the border guards for treatment at al-Makased Hospital in East Jerusalem. I ask before the pack of reporters attack him, "Hajj, how is Gaza?"

"It's like hell," he answers.

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"Hamas is negotiating with Israel": this is what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas confidently said to a BBC-Arabic reporter in an exclusive interview. How does he know? Abbas asserted that there are "no secrets in Israel."

If things could only be this simple in the Middle East, Mr. Abbas would have known from the get-go that the Oslo Accords were a disaster for the Palestinians, Bush's Road Map for Peace was just another road to nowhere, the Annapolis Peace Conference was dead on arrival, and Obama's promises for "change" do not mean squat when it comes to Israel.

The president of the Palestinian Authority added that the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for January will be postponed and that he would not seek a second term as president. Abbas looked frustrated...he looked like a beaten man.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government in recent days has been scrambling for yet another distraction to offer the beleaguered Palestinian Authority president: an interim accord that would include a Palestinian state with provisional borders. This way he'll have a quasi-state with temporary borders to show for all the endless negotiations. What a brilliant idea!

The reasoning behind this brilliant idea is that it would remove contentious issues that have prevented an agreement in the past, such as the Palestinian refugee issue and Jerusalem, from the negotiating table. No big deal, really!

This is starting to sound like another chapter from One Thousand and One Nights.

In another development, the Israeli government has recently approved the construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on lands captured by Israel in 1967. The announcement has caused an uproar in the international community and has drawn sharp criticism and "dismay" from the White House.

And yet another brilliant idea: according to the Jerusalem Post, in an attempt to lure the PA back to the negotiating table, in private discussions, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he was prepared for a moratorium on new settlement construction, as long as it did not include Jerusalem and did not preclude construction of public buildings needed for normal life in the settlements.

Translated, this means construction will continue as usual in E. Jerusalem along with expanding current Israeli settlements.

Meanwhile, with all this happening, media reports have been surfacing that a final deal has been reached for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Some Arab media outlets have been reporting that Shalit might be released as early as the Muslim Eid holiday in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners. Should this happen, it will be a major victory for Hamas and another blow to Abbas.

Last month Hamas handed Israel a video of Shalit in exchange for 20 female Palestinian prisoners, something that was widely seen as a major victory for the organization by many Palestinians.

According to a poll published in Haaretz, 57 percent of Israelis support the idea of talking with Hamas. The poll was taken in the wake of a statement by former defense minister Shaul Mofaz, who last week unveiled a plan that includes negotiations with Hamas and an interim Palestinian state on 60 percent of the West Bank in a year.

"If Hamas would be elected and would want to negotiate and accept the Quartet's conditions, from that moment, it is no longer Hamas," said Mr. Mofaz. He also added: "Responsible leadership in Israel would sit with those who changed their agenda."

So if Hamas is no longer Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority is no longer an authority, what options do the Palestinians have?

To be continued on another night...

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It's amazing what a little controversy can do to the ratings of a mediocre television show: it drives them up through the roof. And that's exactly what happened to what used to be a "barely-watched" Turkish drama series called Ayrilik: a love story that develops between the lead characters during Israel's "Operation Cast Lead" on the Gaza Strip. The show, which airs on Turkey's state-owned TRT television, depicts Israeli soldiers murdering innocent Palestinian civilians. One particular segment showed images of Israeli soldiers shooting a smiling young girl in the chest, steamrolling a tank through a crowded street and lining up a firing squad to shoot at a group of Palestinians.

Ayrilik's producer owes some gratitude and thanks to Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who has recently complained to the Turkish government over its airing when he said on Wednesday that, "broadcasting this series is incitement of the most severe kind, and it is done under government sponsorship." Since then the show has been making headlines in both Turkish and global media, drawing more audience to TRT television and curiosity-seekers to YouTube to watch clips of the show.

This is not the first time a Turkish drama has caused a buzz in the Middle East. Last year a cheesy series called Noor (light) became a phenomenon when it captured an audience of 85 million viewers when it aired its last episode. The show's popularity increased when some Muslim Imams accused it of violating Islamic values and the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa against watching it.

The saga between Israel and Turkey is not about a television drama, although in reality it has unfolded like one ever since the rise of the Justice and Development Party in 2002. Turkey's ties with Israel have been deteriorating rapidly since Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter, which left hundreds of Palestinian civilians dead. However, tensions between the two allies hit a peak after Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stormed out of a conference during the Davos summit this year where he confronted Israel's President Shimon Peres over the Palestinian civilian casualties during its offensive on Gaza. Wagging his finger at Peres, an emotional Erdogan accused him of "murdering children on beaches" -- an outburst that made Erdogan a hero in the Arab world.

Adding more fuel to the fire, Turkey has recently banned Israel from an international air exercise in protest against its actions in Gaza, then announced that it will hold military exercises with its nemesis Syria. The announcement came after officials from Ankara and Damascus held the first meeting of a new co-operation council in the Syrian city of Aleppo aimed at ending years of tension between the two neighbors.

For decades Turkey has been looking to the West. It has been eager to please the United States, Europe, and NATO. It has been obsessed with membership to the EU, though snubbed thus far. What's more interesting is the fact that the Turkish military, which usually determines the country's strategic path, even when it goes against the will of the people, is keeping mum about the political decision which could signal a major shift in Turkey's future alliances.

For decades, Turkey has been Israel's closest ally in the Muslim world. It was the second Muslim majority country (after Iran) to recognize the State of Israel. The Islamic Revolution ended Iran's ties with Israel, and although Turkey's ties with Israel will not be severed, they have been permanently damaged.

Article first published in the Huffington Post.