To thunderous applause before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, Israeli Prime Minister delivered what amounted to a stunning rebuke of Barack Obama's vision of Middle East peace, just days after the U.S. president outlined his basic parameters for a two-state solution.

There was little, if anything, new in Netanyahu's speech: He reiterated his longstanding positions on borders (he won't go back to the 1967 lines), Jerusalem (he wants it to remain undivided), refugees (none can return to Israel), and security (a demilitarized Palestinian state, with Israeli troops "along the Jordan River"). He again demanded that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" -- a determination Abbas says is for Israelis themselves to make.

Although he said Israel would be "very generous on the size of a future Palestinian state," Netanyahu was uncompromising about just whose land he was talking about. As he put it, "In Judea and Samaria" -- religious names for the West Bank -- "the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo."

Netanyahu also demanded that Abbas immediately "tear up" his recent unity agreement with Hamas, a movement he said was "the Palestinian version of al Qaeda."

However vague, these are not terms that any Palestinian leader concerned for his political survival can accept, and indeed, Abbas's side was quick to reject them in no uncertain terms. (One Palestinian official said Netanyahu's speech was "a declaration of war on Palestine.") Hamas, for its part, seems as intransigent as ever. There will be no negotiations for the foreseeable future.

Given their lack of faith in the "peace process" -- and Abbas's unwillingness to take any risks -- it now seems certain that the Palestinians will plow ahead with their statehood drive at the United Nations, a move that both Obama and Netanyahu vigorously oppose. Given how recent U.N. votes have gone, the United States will stand alone as the rest of the world denounces the Israeli occupation and embraces a Palestinian state. It may not change any facts on the ground, but it will further illustrate just how isolated America and Israel are becoming. And this may even be an optimistic scenario -- a third intifada may well break out, possibly leading to another round of destabilizing violence. Any shred of hard-won credibility the United States has regained in the Arab world as a result of the "Arab Spring" will be gone.

So is there any hope?

Even before Netanyahu's speech, Yossi Alpher, a devoted veteran of the peace process, had exhausted his well of ideas:

This writer has only one hope left. After this week, the speechmaking will be over for a while. All those Israelis, Americans and Europeans of good will who for months have evinced confidence that it is still possible to squeeze a viable peace process out of Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas, should now come to their senses. It's time to prepare not for a bilateral process but for a UN process. It's not too late to leverage the Arab UN initiative into a win-win dynamic for both Israelis and Palestinians that will transform a seemingly hopeless morass into a far more manageable two-state conflict. 

Chances of that happening, given the display we just saw in Congress? About as close to zero as you can imagine.

The headline on the home page of the New York Times -- "U.S. Mideast Envoy Resigns After 2 Years of Frustration" -- says it all. George Mitchell's departing note to the president is curt: 

When I accepted your request to serve as U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace my intention was to serve for two years. More than two years having passed I hereby resign, effective May 20, 2011. I trust this will provide sufficient time for an effective transition.

I strongly support your vision of comprehensive peace in the Middle East and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be part of your administration. It has been an honor for me to again serve our country.

What's amazing is not Mitchell resigned, but that he hung in there so long. As my colleague Josh Rogin reports, Mitchell has long been marginalized: The Israelis weren't interested in meeting him, and his own ostensible colleague in the White House, longtime peace-processor Dennis Ross, developed his back channel to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (In typical fashion, Israel and Palestinian officials took the opportunity to blame each other for Mitchell's failure.)

This is usually the point in an article about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where the author offers up an alternative strategy for advancing peace, but unfortunately I don't have one. The peace process has long been a charade -- a cowardly game of inches and incrementalism -- because none of the three parties to the dispute dares take any political risks. Most Israelis seem happy with the status quo, and the settlers' bloc has expanded to the point where its power may be impossible to check. Bibi Netanyahu has written an entire, tedious book explaining why he doesn't believe in a two-state solution, and takes every opportunity to exploit to the other side's obstructionism, divisions, and weakness. The Palestinian Authority is led by Mahmoud Abbas, a dumpy, charmless Fatah party functionary who has international support but close to zero street legitimacy; Hamas controls Gaza and has yet to admit the abject failure of its violent strategy. The Israeli and Palestinian publics still have vastly different expectations on sensitive issues like Jerusalem and the right of return, and the current political leadership on both sides has made no effort to prepare the ground for concessions. Peace seems as far away as ever.

The one bright spot is Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who has put his head down and built functioning institutions to the point where one of the many arguments made in favor of the Israeli occupation -- that Palestinians just aren't ready to run their own country -- is no longer so credible. But Fayyad is not popular domestically, either, and he may become a casualty of the recent Fatah-Hamas unity deal, a move that would spook the international donors that would keep any nascent Palestinian state afloat. The U.S. Congress is already making rumblings about cutting off aid.

All of this comes months ahead of Abbas's September deadline for declaring independence, a move that will put him in direct disagreement with the United States just as the 2012 campaign begins to hit up. European countries have signaled quietly that they might break with Washington and recognize Palestine, and frankly at this point I think many Americans would welcome the idea, because nothing else seems to work. Barack Obama will likely give a speech in August signaling his "deep commitment" to Middle East peace, but there is no chance whatsover that he'll make any bold or creative moves in election season. According to Yahoo's Laura Rozen, he's not even planning to raise the Arab-Israeli issue during next Thursday's big speech on the Middle East.

So the floor will be clear for Netanyahu, who meets with Obama next week and is due to address Congress on Tuesday, May 24. If past is prologue, we can expect Bibi to bamboozle: offer just enough movement to seem reasonable but not enough to actually induce the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. And why not? There's very little pressure on him domestically to cut a deal, and he knows that little pressure will be forthcoming from Washington, especially given the risk that one Hamas leader or another will pop off and say something crazy.

Perhaps the abject failure of U.S. peacemaking efforts to date will encourage other folks -- I'm looking at you, Nabil El-Araby -- to come forward with creative solutions. But I wouldn't bet more than a few sheckels on it.

In case you haven't heard, Al Jazeera (along with the Guardian) on Sunday announced it had gotten its hands on more than 1,600 Palestinian documents detailing negotiations with Israeli and U.S. officials. The documents aren't all released yet, but the story is already roiling the Arab world, prompting fresh cries that the Palestinian Authority is "selling out" to Israel by offering politically sensitive concessions on Jerusalem, its holy sites, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Perhaps more damning, in Arab eyes, is the language used by some Palestinian leaders. Longtime peace negotiator Saeb Erekat is quoted in one document, a write-up of a Jan. 15, 2010, meeting with U.S. envoy David Hale, saying he had offered Israel "the biggest Yerushalayim in Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees return, demilitarized state ... what more can I give?"

Erekat and other Palestinian leaders have made no effort to prepare their public for these kinds of concessions. In 2009, for instance, Erekat appeared on Al Jazeera and said, "There will be no peace whatsoever unless East Jerusalem -- with every single stone in it -- becomes the capital of Palestine." 

No wonder Palestinian leaders are scrambling to contain the damage, ripping Al Jazeera and even the emir of Qatar, which sponsors the satellite channel. Erekat told reporters that the documents have been "taken out of context and contain lies… Al Jazeera's information is full of distortions and fraud." For its part, the network says it has "taken great care over an extended period of time to assure ourselves of their authenticity," as has the Guardian. The State Department says it's looking into them.

So, who leaked the papers? Most likely people within the Negotiations Support Unit, the Palestinian organization that staffs Erekat and took most of the notes, the Guardian reports:

[A]s the negotiations have increasingly been seen to have failed, and the Ramallah-based PA leadership has come to be regarded by many Palestinians as illegitimate or unrepresentative, discontent among NSU staff has grown and significant numbers have left. There has also been widespread discontent in the organisation at the scale and nature of concessions made in the talks.

If this speculation is right, the leakers intended to embarrass their former bosses. Mission accomplished.

So what now? Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been ruling outside the law for some time now; there doesn't seem to be a legal means for his opponents to oust him. That means Palestinians who oppose the PA are going to need to take to the streets to voice their disapproval, Tunisia style.

And what of the two-state solution? It was probably already dead, and these documents will only reinforce the point. But I imagine the "peace process" will limp along, one way or another, until it becomes impossible to defend anymore. I hope the Obama team has an exit strategy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted his pay slip on Facebook today, in what his office is billing as a step forward for government transparency. The picture reveals that Netanyahu makes approximately $120,000 a year, significantly less than President Barack Obama's $400,000 salary.

To me, the greatest surprise of this news was Israel's high income tax rates. Netanyahu's gross income was 43,952 shekels, but after tax deductions, his net income came out to 15,027 shekels. That's a tax rate of almost 66 percent! And I thought the Israeli socialist ideal was dead.

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) claimed to have uncovered two Israeli spy cameras placed in the mountains overlooking Beirut. And how did it know that the devices belong to Israel? Well, one of them had the word "Israel" written in English on its side. The LAF promptly posted photos of the cameras on its website.

A mysterious explosion also rocked the southern Lebanese city of Saida on Wednesday night, which Lebanese media said was caused by Israel destroying another espionage device. Israel denied that was the case, and Lebanese authorities have so far been unable to produce munitions with "Israel" written in large letters on its side.

Over the weekend, Israeli authorities finally contained the wildfire that devastated parts of northern Israel, near Haifa. The fire, which killed 42 people, including Israel's highest-ranking policewoman, is being called the worst natural disaster in the country's history. Today, a 14-year old boy admitted to throwing a piece of coal from a hookah pipe into the forest, starting the blaze.

Israel prides itself on its self-reliance and is usually a provider of rescue teams and medical personnel during other countries' natural disasters. The government was reportedly ill-equipped to handle a blaze of this magnitude, and had to take the unprecedented step of asking for help from abroad. Noting that both the United States and Russia have asked for international help in fighting major wildfires, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We also did not hesitate, nor were we ashamed in requesting such assistance." (Netanyahu also reportedly looked to President George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina as an example of how not to respond to a natural disaster.)

What's most surprising is the not the help Israel received from the United States, European Union, and Russia, but that from Turkey and the Palestinian Authority. Relations between Turkey and Israel have been strained since May's deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, killing eight Turks and a Turkish-American. Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the first time since the raid to thank him for sending two airplanes to help battle the blaze. "We very much appreciate this mobilization and I am certain that it will be an opening toward improving relations between our two countries, Turkey and Israel," Netanyahu said in a statement released to the press after the call.

Netanyahu also spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday for the first time since direct talks broke down in September. Abbas volunteered to send three fire trucks to the area.

Will disaster lead to diplomacy? Turkey has already engaged in "hurricane diplomacy" with Greece after a series of earthquakes devastated both countries in 1999. Greece and Turkey had maintained fraught and conflict-ridden relations for centuries. In the aftermath of the earthquakes, each sent rescue teams to help the other and newspapers were full of stories about Turkish citizens offering to donate kidneys to Greek victims (and vice versa).

Turkey doesn't seem as enthusiastic about improved relations this time. Erdogan said he still expects an apology and compensation from Israel for the flotilla deaths, noting that the aid for the fire was purely humanitarian.

"We would never stand by when people are being killed and nature is being destroyed anywhere in the world," Erdogan told CNNTurk. "No one should try to interpret this any differently." In a dig at Netanyahu, who said Turkey's gesture could help improve Turkish-Israeli ties, he continued:

"Now some are coming out and saying, 'Let's begin a new phase.' Before that, our demands must be met ... Our nine brothers martyred on the Mavi Marmara [the vessel raided by Israeli commandos] must be accounted for. First an apology must be made and compensation must be paid."

The Egyptian Intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, travelled to Israel on Thursday to officially discuss the Middle East peace process. Haaretz reports that Israeli President Shimon Peres met with Suleiman and "discussed different methods to jump start the flailing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians."

The visit reflects the importance of Suleiman and the Egyptian state security apparatus -- not only for domestic issues, but broader international objectives as well.

As the director of the powerful Egyptian GIS, Suleiman enjoys the support and confidence of President Hosni Mubarak, and the multifaceted role of Suleiman reflects the nature of the present government in Egypt, where regime support is highly valued and loyalty is rewarded with top trusted positions.

This is not the first time Suleiman has served such roles for Mubarak. Suleiman hosted "talks aimed at encouraging... cease-fire between Palestinian militants in Gaza and Israel" in early 2009, according to UPI.

The stated purpose for Suleiman's trip is to talk about the peace process, but there's likely more on the agenda. The two countries also share concerns over the rising influence of Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Egypt last year in a bid to create Arab opposition to counter the Iranian nuclear program.

Relations between Egypt and Iran detiorated following the Islamic Revloution in Iran; last year, Egypt has accussed Iran of backing subversive Hezbollah operatives in the country and convicted 26 men of espionage against the state. 

Israel is likely looking to capitalize on Cairo's growing discomfort.

Israeli authorities say a cache of weapons seized at a Nigerian port this week originated in Iran and were bound for Gaza:

Agents with Nigeria's secretive State Security Service discovered the weapons Tuesday hidden inside of 13 shipping containers dropped off at Lagos' busy Apapa Port. Journalists allowed to see the weapons Wednesday saw 107 mm rockets, rifle rounds and other items labeled in English. Authorities said the shipment also contained grenades, explosives and possibly rocket launchers, but journalists did not see them.

Wale Adeniyi, a spokesman for Nigeria's Customs Service, said Thursday that the MV CMA-CGM Everest dropped the weapons off in July. Adeniyi said the ship last stopped at Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru Port before coming to Nigeria.

If the Israelis are right, that would mean that in order to travel the roughly 1,000 mile distance between Iran and Gaza, the weapons first had to travel about 1,700 miles in the opposite direction to Mumbai, then take a roughly 8,000 mile journey around the Horn of Africa before landing in Nigeria, where, if they hadn't been seized, they would still have had to travel over 5,000 miles through the Mediterranean before landing in Gaza.

Seems like distance is still very much alive for the international weapons trade.

The Iranian energy sector may currently be the target of aggressive and renewed U.S. sanctions, but that's not stopping it from offering assistance to the energy sectors and consumption needs for other countries -- especially those in the Arab world.

Iran is now looking to expand energy ties with Lebanon, in addition to longer standing negotiations it has been conducting with the Persian Gulf countries of Bahrain and Oman. This time of year, it seems, the talk is all about cash, pipelines, and energy.

When it comes to Lebanon, the country "continues to suffer from power shortages that can reach 15 hours a day," reports Bloomberg news. That's a problem Iran wants to have a role in solving. "Iranian officials said they were looking into helping with the rehabilitation of Lebanon's two refineries, which currently are only used for storage."

An Iran-Lebanon pipeline could potentially be in the works, theoretically passing through Iraq, Syria, and possibly even Turkey, according to the same report. Iran has even offered the Lebanese government (note: not Hezbollah, but the whole government) "unlimited" economic and military support, following the United States' suspension of $100 million of military aid to the country a few months prior.

In no small part due to sanctions that specifically target its gasoline refining capacities, Iran has enacted rationing within its own borders and invested heavily in updating its refining capabilities -- reportedly not only attaining self sufficiency, but also exporting gasoline for the first time last month.

This, among other achievements, has prompted Juan Cole to ceremoniously label Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "Mahmoud the Great." Though, admittedly, there is a lot to debate on that subject.

These talks also come on the brink of a historic visit to Lebanon by Ahmadinejad -- his first as president, and a visit that the Israelis have been frantically trying to prevent (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not appear to be too pleased, either). Ahmadinejad is planning on visiting southern Lebanon, the stronghold of Hezbollah, including villages hit particularly hard during the 2006 Israeli invasion. To further get into the spirit, Ahmadinejad may actually be throwing a rock at Israel while at the border.

This might be the closest direct contact that Iran and Israel, I mean the Zionist Regime, may approach in a long time. Talk about one-sided negotiations.

Unless George Mitchell can work a miracle in a region that has seen far too few of them over the last 2000 years, it looks increasingly like the direct Middle East talks are headed for an ignominious early failure.

One clear sign (in case you needed any after the Palestinians threatened Saturday to walk out) is this story in today’s Haaretz by the very well-sourced Barak Ravid, who reports that Mitchell has dramatically overstated the extent to which the negotiations were going well -- to the chagrin of the Palestinian side.

We’ll get to the reasons to be a little skeptical of this story in a minute, but first let’s look at what Ravid’s sources are telling him.

The main takeaway is that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been telling anyone who will listen, that his ostensible partner for peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is not serious. He only wants to talk about security, and won’t engage on other “core issues” of the conflict such as the borders of an eventual Palestinian state. "I heard nothing from Netanyahu but niceties," Abbas is quoted as telling unnamed “foreign diplomats” at the U.N. General Assembly.

The second interesting bit is that we’re learning more about what the actual contents of the discussion were. Abbas and Netanyahu held three meetings. The first one, Ravid tells us, was mainly about setting the ground rules for the discussion and agreeing to keep talking, though the two sides did have a conversation about whether to deal with borders or security first. At the second sitdown, Abbas and Netanyahu attempted (and apparently failed) to define what the “core issues” to be discussed actually were.

The third meeting, held in Jerusalem, sounds like a real disaster, with Abbas trying to get Netanyahu to discuss the offer made by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, while Bibi again focused on security and supposedly didn’t engage on Abbas’s presentation of Palestinian positions. “The American brokers were reportedly extremely frustrated after the meeting in Jerusalem and some of them wondered if the talks hadn't in fact gone backward.”

Cleary, we’re getting largely the Palestinian side of the story here, so we don’t have a full picture of what is going on (the story also contradicts what we heard about the first meeting, after which Abbas aides told pan-Arab daily Al Hayat that they were feeling optimistic about the talks). But it looks like Ravid did try to confirm details with Netanyahu’s office, which doesn’t seem to have pushed back very hard. Be on the lookout for a follow-up article that tells Netanyhu’s side of the tale.

The real significance of the story, though, is not the details -- it’s the fact that they’re emerging now in such an ugly way. We’re no longer in the middle of a negotiation; we’re well into the blame game, with each side trying to hang the likely failure of the talks around the necks of the other.

That failure is going to have repercussions for both sides. On the Israeli side, some in the Labor Party are agitating to withdraw from Bibi’s coalition, and some in the opposition Kadima Party want Bibi to boot out Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his far-right Yisraeli Beitenu party -- which has become a national embarrassment -- thus paving the way for Kadima to join the government. Meanwhile, the right is blaming Netanyahu for agreeing to the settlement moratorium in the first place. A collapse or a reshuffle of Bibi’s coalition may be exactly what the Palestinians are hoping to provoke by withdrawing from the talks. But it’s not clear whether these rumblings have much traction, and in any case Defense Minister Ehud Minister, the head of the Labor Party, seems to enjoy being at the center of the action.

The key player to watch now is Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, who has kept her criticism of Netanyahu to a minimum while the negotiations still held out some hope of success. On Saturday, she urged Netanyahu to keep the Palestinians at the table, warning of dire consequences to Israel’s security if the talks “blow up.” Look to her now to start speaking out more often, and try to make some moves behind the scenes. It’s not clear whether she can do much, however, and she has her own internal opposition to worry about.

Hamas, meanwhile, is licking its chops, vowing that Palestinians will return to “resistance” when, not if, talks fail. And then things will really get ugly.

UPDATE: Haaretz, citing a story in London's pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, reports that Netanyahu has agreed to extend the settlement freeze for two months. Sourcing looks weak on this one, so let's see what actually happens.

Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based leader of Hamas, said today that the best response to the end of Israel's 10-month "settlement freeze" would be a reconciliation with rival Palestinian faction Hamas.

DPA reports:

Meshaal argued that internal reconciliation would make the Palestinians more powerful in negotiations, calling it a national necessity and the best way to react to the 'Zionist intransigence.'

Meshaal does have a point. A leadership that represents only half of the Palestinian people, and basically acts as though Gaza doesn't exist, is pretty limited when it comes to negotiating the "final status" issues with Israel. At the same time, the Israelis probably wouldn't be willing to enter negotiations with a Palestinian coalition that includes Hamas. (U.S. envoy to the region George Mitchell has said as much.) It certainly doesn't help that Meshaal also said today that Hamas will continue to "kill illegal settlers on [Palestinian] land."

We may soon find out how a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation will affect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Good news for the Palestinians may be on the horizon. A Hamas spokesperson told a Kuwaiti newspaper today, "We will all celebrate Palestinian national reconciliation in Egypt soon."

Of course, we've heard that one before. In 2008 Hamas and Fatah signed a Yemeni-sponsored deal Sanaa saying they would begin the reconciliation talks soon. They changed their minds a few days later. In September 2009 the two groups were again close to reaching an agreement, but nothing came of that. In January of this year, Meshaal told reporters in Riyadh, "We made great strides toward achieving reconciliation," and, "We are in the final stages now."

Will this time be different? It's hard to tell and these agreements have often been called off at the last minute. But if Fatah and Hamas do reach an agreement, it will undoubtedly change the course of the negotiations that President Obama has been supporting so vocally. The Palestinian negotiators will become more legitimate and the Israelis more resistant.

A top-ranking Russian official recently confirmed his nation's intention to go ahead with the sale of some particularly lethal cruise missiles to Syria. Israel, not-so-surprisingly, is not-so-happy. The supersonic Russian Yakhont missiles have a range of 138 miles, according to the BBC, and could target Israeli warships in the Mediterranean.

Syria and Russia signed the missile agreement in 2007, but Russia is yet to deliver the goods.

The Israelis have been working for some time to dissuade the Russians on fulfilling their contract, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoning his Russian counterpart, Vladir Putin, last month to try and convince him to renege on the agreement.

Of course, the Russians are quite notorious for this kind of behavior; back in 2005 they signed a contract for the supply of the S-300 missile defense system to Iran -- a powerful anti-aircraft system which poses serious threats to modern aircraft, including Israel's own air force. December will mark five years of the Russians dragging their feet on the deal, offering conflicting statements on the status of the system throughout the process.

In the meantime, Russia has been reaping the benefits of the situation, purchasing advanced Israeli drones this spring -- their first military purchase from Israel. More recently, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, travelled to Moscow to meet with Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, where he signed a quite promising military cooperation deal.

Lesson for the day? You could be getting those missiles soon Syria -- but don't get your hopes up, the Russians know how to milk you for the ride.

Then again, they may be learning from the best.

A very long decade ago, the world's leaders got together at the United Nations here in New York to agree on something pretty remarkable: that they were going to do their best to end poverty by 2015. In just over a week, they'll come back -- now with two-thirds of that time gone by -- to see how well we've done.

Sounds very nice, but the negotiations to settle on an answer to that question have been far less glamorous. A draft of the final outcome document, dated Sept. 8 at 1:00 p.m. EST, gives a hint at where the sticking points were: language about foreign occupation and blame where progress has lagged behind.

In the first case, the reference to foreign occupation is largely an allusion to Israel and Palestine, and the draft document shows that the so-called G77 group of developing countries has suggested a different set of language than the United States on four different occassions. For example, the draft indicates that the United States would like to delete a point that reads:

"We acknowledge that the persistance of foreign occuapation is a major obstacle to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals for people living under such occupation. We underline the need to take  concrete and concerted actions in conformity with international law to remove the obstacles to the full realization of the rights of peoples living under foreign occupation, so as to ensure their achievement of the Millennium Development Goals."

The latter point of blame -- is it the donor-countries who have failed to give enough, or the poor countries who haven't done enough with the money? -- seems to have been settled; the draft declares that "committments [to poverty reduction] by developed and developing countries in relation to the MDGs require mutual accountability." (Not much on specifics here, leaving some to wonder whether the pledges that world leaders will no doubt bring with them to the summit in New York later this month will be more than words alone.)

Aside from the sticking points, the document is a pretty comprehensive list of everything left to do before 2015. It's essentially a catalogue of everything that the international community has learned about "development" over the last six decades. The laundry list includes a lot of general philosophies about that assistance to the poor -- that communities have to "own" their own empowerment, that every sector needs to be targeted, that technology needs to be used to boost the speed and efficiency of anti-poverty measures, that good governance matters, that everyone from the private sector to governments to NGOs to the U.N. has to be involved -- and so on. It's common sense stuff. But again, getting 192 countries to agree on it isn't so simple.

And by the way, are we going to succeed in our lofty goal? The short answer is kind of. The world will probably meet some of its headline figures when you average the sum of all countries worldwide. But the detailed picture is less upbeat: the incredible progress of countries such as China and India (as well as Vietnam, Rwanda, and other impressive gains) has brought up the global average, covering weaknesses in the many countries lagging behind. As the document puts it, while there have been some success stories, "We are deeply concerned however, that the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger surpasses one billion and that inequalities between and witihin countries remain a significant challenge."

In other words, we haven't eradicated poverty among the poorest; we've just made the middle a little bit better. Five years to fix it starts now.

I may be skeptical about the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that began in Washington last week, but at least I'm not in the Israeli government. Avigdor Lieberman, however, is, and it looks like the foreign minister -- who lives in a West Bank settlement -- is out to sabotage the negotiations. Speaking at a gathering of his far-right Yisraeli Beiteinu party Sunday, Lieberman reportedly said that a complete, final peace deal would not be possible -- "not next year and not for the next generation."

He also said that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas "will not sign an agreement with Israel," but that he wouldn't take up arms, either. "The only practical solution," Lieberman said, "is a long-term interim agreement, on which we can debate. Our proposal is: No to unilateral concessions, no to continuing the settlement freeze, yes to serious negotiations and mutual gestures of good faith."

Haaretz also channels Israeli cabinet ministers' complaints that Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, isn't sharing details of his discussions with Abbas (many of them would love to be able to leak controversial bits to the press and blow up the talks) or his plan to deal with the impending expiration of his 10-month settlement freeze (a majority wants to start building again). Meanwhile, senior Abbas aides are already feuding in the press and spreading strategic leaks of their own.

It will take an unimaginable change of heart, not to mention skillful coalition management, by Netanyahu, to make these negotiations succeed -- and that's assuming he really wants to do it and isn't just trying to relieve American pressure. (Israeli commentator Aluf Benn predicts that Bibi's about to pull a "Nixon to China" moment, but I'm not persuaded by clichés.)

Already, it looks to me like both sides expect the talks to fail and are maneuvering to hang that failure on the other guy. Abbas has said repeatedly and unequivocally that he'll walk out if building resumes, while the Israeli government remains committed -- at least publicly -- to letting the freeze expire. According to the Jerusalem Post, 57 projects are ready to drop on Sept. 27, the day after the moratorium ends (indeed, some projects have already begun).

Carlos Stenger calls forth a parade of horribles to expect if and when the talks fall apart: an uptick in terrorist attacks, the possible dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, a return to full Israeli control of the West Bank, growing diplomatic isolation for Israel. So what's Plan B?