I tend to agree with the Financial Times' Tobias Buck that the provocative Israeli decision to approve a plan to build 1,600 new homes in a Jewish settlement in occupied East Jerusalem during Vice President Joe Biden's visit was a reflection of "the dysfunctional nature of the Israeli government on matters related to the peace process." As he and other journalists have noted, the committee that approved the expansion plan is part of the interior ministry, which is run by Eli Yishai, the leader of the rightwing, ultra-orthodox Shas party, and may be part of its effort to bury the moribund "peace process." The conventional wisdom now is that the decision amounted to an Israeli self-inflicted diplomatic wound that has damaged the relationship between the United States and Israel and that the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no choice but to play defense and cut its losses.
But even if one doesn't buy into an alternative explanation that "Bibi" Netanyahu himself had orchestrated the crisis in order to make it almost impossible to re-start Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, it is still possible that the Israeli Likud leader could end-up emerging as the real political winner here.
