Israel's colonization policy is a threat to peace - and to itself

The supposedly "re-launched" Palestinian-Israeli peace process has had a phony feel to it from the beginning at Annapolis in November 2007. The Israelis have shown little willingness to abandon the maximalist positions that caused the Oslo process to break down in 2000, and the Americans have refused to demand a more helpful approach from their proteges. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, like the late Yasser Arafat before him, is effectively being asked to sign an instrument of surrender - and therefore his own death warrant - so the talks cannot succeed.

Just to be sure, though, the Israelis continue to carry out all manner of provocations designed to finish off the peace process. The latest came on Friday when officials announced the approval of 1,300 new homes at an illegal colony in Occupied Jerusalem. That move, the second of its kind in the past month alone, hits squarely on the nexus between two of the biggest obstacles to any negotiated solution: the fate of the holy city and what to do with the half-million or so "settlers" living illegally on occupied land.

Incredibly, Israeli officials try to rationalize such activities in Jerusalem by arguing that since they refuse to share the city in any eventual peace agreement, they have every right to build wherever they please. This is not just inane: It is also evil and self-destructive, and for several reasons.

First, if they are serious about their "eternal, undivided capital" rhetoric, the negotiations might as well be called off right now. The occupation of traditionally Arab East Jerusalem flies in the face of international law, and no Palestinian leader - least of all one with Abbas' shaky authority - can be expected to legitimize the wholesale theft of his people's most cherished city. Second, if the rhetoric is just part of a negotiating position, using the colonists to apply pressure at sensitive times can only ensure that if and when a deal is struck, their relations with their neighbors will be almost impossible to repair. Third, if Israel gets away with its unabashed defiance of the modern international system's most important principle - that military force is no longer an acceptable means of territorial gain - it will only establish a precedent making it fair game if and when another power develops the wherewithal to end the Zionist experiment once and for all.

From its creation in 1948, the state of Israel has been a supreme test for the new order put in place in the aftermath of World War II - and the results have not been impressive. Thanks largely to the slavish support of the United States, the Israelis have been able to break the rules with near-immaculate impunity. This has made victims of several Arab peoples, especially the Palestinians - and therefore accomplices of dozens of otherwise progressive governments around the world. These have preached collective security, but in practice they have aided and abetted collective punishment on a grand scale over six decades. If the tables are ever turned and Jews are kicked out of Jerusalem instead of Muslims, there will be plenty of blame to go around.