Only a stop to settlements can save the talks

The negotiation efforts by US President Barack Obama will lead to nothing as long as Israelis keep settling on the West Bank, writes the liberal daily The Independent: "The immediate challenge for Obama is to find a formula which can reconcile Netanyahu's reluctance to prolong a partial freeze on settlement building beyond 26 September - probably strengthened by Wednesday night's killings - and Abbas's threat to pull out of talks if he refuses. If the talks do survive, what will they be about? What they've always been about: ending the Israeli occupation which began with victory in the 1967 Six Day War when it took control of the West Bank and Gaza. And that means agreements on borders, which the Palestinians believe must be based on the pre-1967 lines, the future of Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a shared capital, and the fate of the families of refugees that were forced from or fled their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war."

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