An article in the New York Times last autumn (Nov. 6) provides a specimen, with the following selection being almost worthy of the Onion:
... the Palestinians published a fact sheet asserting that Israel had "escalated announcements of illegal settlement activity" since the resumption of talks. It cited the new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including more than 2,000 for which tenders were published this week.
But an Israeli official brushed off the criticism of settlement construction from Palestinian leaders, saying, "Israel has scrupulously honored the understandings that were reached at the beginning of the current round of talks." Israel had warned Mr. Kerry it would continue to build in the settlements during the negotiations.
... Gideon Saar, Israel's interior minister and a confidant of Mr. Netanyahu's, accused the Palestinians "of trying either to isolate or to boycott the state of Israel while holding negotiations with it.
"There is a total lack of flexibility in their opening positions," he said.
To sum up, the Israelis have scrupulously kept to their promise of being unscrupulous. Furthermore, according to the Israeli interior minister, building settlements on occupied land somehow does not count as "trying either to isolate or to boycott the state of [Palestine] while holding negotiations with it." Nor is ongoing settlement expansion apparently an instance of "inflexibility." This kind of treatment is routine in the American coverage. Either the journalists see it or they don't; which is worse would be difficult to judge.
Included here is also a link to my brief guide to the peace process, which I wrote for the blog last July. In moments when the peace process takes center stage in the news, I will occasionally repost it.
Guardian editorial
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/01/israeli-palestinian-talks-editorial
Harms: peace process
http://gregoryharms.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-brief-guide-to-peace-process.html
