Mitchell sits this one out.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A U.S. envoy's postponement of his Mideast trip appeared Tuesday to deepen one of the worst U.S.-Israeli feuds in memory — even as Israel's foreign minister signaled his government had no intention of curtailing the contentious construction at the heart of the row.
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Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio that demands to halt Israeli construction there "are unreasonable" and predicted the row with the U.S. would blow over, saying neither side had an interest in escalation.

But Washington notified Israel early Tuesday that envoy George Mitchell had put off his trip indefinitely. Mitchell had planned on coming to wrap up preparations for relaunching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.


Roger Cohen, NYT:

Peace is a vital American interest for many reasons, including its inalienable commitment to Israel’s long-term security, but the most pressing is that the conflict is a jihadist recruitment tool that feeds the wars in which young Americans die.

This is not rocket science. Yet over the past decade the United States has been facilitating the costly settlements enterprise by pouring $28.9 billion into Israel. America’s strategic goal of Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side in security has been undermined by its own blank-check diplomacy.
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The Israeli right, whether religious or secular, has no interest in a two-state peace. I had lunch the other day with Ron Nachman, the mayor of Ariel, one of the largest West Bank settlements. He told me breezily that there “can be no Palestinian state,” and that “Israel and Jordan should divide the land.” I liked his frankness. It clarifies things.

Funny. That's similar to what that David Frum fellow was mouthing on a recent Bloggingheads video with founder Robert Wright: Does Israel need Peace? Frum forsees the Palestinians living like our Puerto Ricans: a territory of Israel, citizens but with no voting rights.

Hmm. I've been to Puerto Rico. I know their people. (Aggressive drivers!) I don't think the Palestinians and the Puerto Ricans share the same mindset toward their benefactor countries, the same grievances. The Puerto Ricans choose to be independent, on their own land. Their children's military service rates -- whether out of the island, or out of New York and Florida -- I would guess exceed the rate of service in the overall U.S. population.

They might not wish to become a 51st state, but there's an American pride there. Fireworks on the fourth of July out in the countryside even. (I visited with Brenda*'s family one summer, years ago -- in Isabela, outside Aquadilla, on the beautiful northwestern coast.)

These pictures on the In Gaza blog, mimic the self-reliance of a rural people growing their own crops in a pastoral setting. Until Israeli soldiers apparently are directed to disrupt their holdings, bulldozing homes and uprooting trees.

As Oprah says: sunshine ... openness is good. I've a feeling for far too long only one side of the Palestinian-Israeli sufferings have been shown in America's mainstream media. Every time a rocket attack caused plaster damage that so much as scratched a settler's child -- we heard in the American media those violent Palestinians were at it again.

And the long shadow of the Holocaust has us grieving with the innocent grandmothers who somehow survived that atrocity, nevermind the sufferings today of the dead and injured elderly in Israeli Defense Force attacks on Palestinian homes and civilians. As soon as we put the anti-Semite card back into the deck where it belongs with the other cards, and understand it's wiser to critically evaluate the actions and future plans of all the players in the region, yes -- even our number one ally -- the sooner taxpayers can stop contributing billions toward an elusive peace that America simply cannot afford not to win.

If the extracted healthcare reform fight ends finally this week -- win, lose or draw -- I'm hoping President Obama and his team will turn their attention to what I've always believed should be a primary foreign policy goal: Defining Israel's borders, and helping her acheive a truer independence -- financially self supporting, at peace with her peer nations in the region. Of course, this means a major mindset change for the Israeli religious extremists who see their tribe, historically, as set apart from the rest of the nations. And it will require American political backbone, no doubt.

But sometimes, you gotta be a friend to have a friend. And sometimes, true friends gotta get tough with one another, to help keep the relationship alive ... long term.

*ROTC

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ADDED: The Chicago Tribune weighs in:

Count us with the White House on this one.

The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the eventual capital of a future state. They're balking at coming to the negotiating table as long as Israel keeps building there. The fate of Jerusalem is one of the stickiest issues in negotiations on a two-state peace agreement. Any building there is seen as more Israeli consolidation in an area that the Palestinians hope to control one day.

Netanyahu apologized and said he was blindsided by the timing of the housing announcement. But he's not backing down from the decision. The construction will continue, he said Monday.

"The combination of rebukes for Israel and conciliatory words for her enemies sends a very dangerous signal to the world," Rep. Paul Price, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said in a statement Monday. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said the administration was being "irresponsible."

Oh my.
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So the grand vision of a brokered peace deal recedes. And the threat of a nuclear Iran advances. Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, reportedly described the current crisis as the worst in more than three decades. He's an accomplished historian so we'd heed his words.

Israel made a big mistake. Republicans compound that mistake by trying to take political advantage of frayed relations between the U.S. and Israel.

Nobody gains from an escalation of tensions.

ADDED: And another Cohen makes baby steps towards recognizing the roots of the problem in a place where Palestinain violence -- unknown before 1948 -- was born:

An Israeli can recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian aspiration and appreciate the depth of the calamity that befell the Palestinians in 1948. The Palestinian intellectual Constantine Zurayk coined the term "al-Nakba" (the disaster) for their 1948 debacle -- and there is no doubt it was.
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Editorialists around the world were quite right to bash the government of Binyamin Netanyahu for its in-your-face rebuke to Biden -- even though, as the analyst Stephen P. Cohen explains, the decision by right-wing ministers was meant also as a rebuke to Netanyahu himself. These housing plans are more than just an irritant. They are a core issue. They proclaim the insistence of right-wing Israelis that all of Jerusalem will remain in Israeli hands on pragmatic grounds and because God wants it this way. For both reasons, a second opinion is in order but not, as it happens, sought.
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Washington's response to the Israeli government's announcement of additional housing was both harsh and appropriate -- an "affront" and an "insult," David Axelrod, President Obama's senior adviser, called it. He might have added "unnecessary" and "counterproductive." The incessant march of West Bank settlements and housing has to stop if there is to be any chance of reaching the vaunted two-state solution.

I hate to see this whole sorry situation turn into a never-ending game of chicken... as in, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"