We needed that like a shotgun blast to the head

The Israel-Palestine conflict; a half-century year old territorial land war, where both sides are steeped in the blood of innocents - Palestinian and Israeli alike. Both sides have committed horrific atrocities; the Palestinian intifada in Hebron, the IDF reservist's massacre of 135 people in the Cave of the Patriarchs, the destruction of civilian equipment by suicide bombers, Israel's horrific foray into the Jenin Refugee Camp. Both sides have committed enough atrocities that an ICC case could be brought against either side with ample evidence to send everyone from Yasser Arafat to Ariel Sharon to prison for the remainder of their lives (if they were still alive).

With all that in mind, you'd think that people in those two countries would be eager for the bloodshed to stop. One side is, and not the one we think. Unless you've been reading Haaretz for the last year (which I'll just assume most of you have not been doing), you'll likely have been convinced that Hamas is a fanatical group of satanic Arab terrorists eager to annihilate Israel without any negotiation. The reality is quite different. Following the declaration of the June ceasefire, Hamas strove to maintain it, attempting to crack down on splinter-groups continuing to attack Israel. It was, in fact, Israel who broke the ceasefire on 4 November 2008, causing Hamas - who had previously been making attempts to renew the ceasefire - to retaliate. That, of course, blew into the shitstorm of the Gaza conflict, killing 1,400 Palestinians, wounding another 5,000, and - in the words of Norman Finkelstein - "using a Hydrogen Bomb to eliminate an anthill".

Even after that, you'd think that the people of the region would still want peace. What better way, then, to kick-start the peace process than to elect an ultranationalist government to run Israel, one that wants little to nothing to do with Palestine or the peace process.
But wait, this story gets better. As the foreign minister of the new government, Likud appointed Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the ultra-ultranationalist party in Israel. Before becoming the leader of that party, Lieberman was a member of Kach, a now-banned political party identified as a terrorist group by the Israeli and US governments in 1994. Lieberman has advocated a variety of extreme positions, such as "taking care of" Arab MPs who show signs of what he calls "disloyalty to Israel" (read "questioning the government's settlement programs"), or turning Israel into an entirely Jewish state by annexing settlement blocs and turning over Arab-majority territory to Gaza or the West Bank.

Having been sworn in as the new foreign minister, Lieberman wasted no time in continuing to fuck up any attempt to have peace in the region, by declaring the Annapolis conference "not recognized" by the Israeli government. The settlement agreement that was supported even by the followers of Ariel Sharon has now been rejected by a man who is not only a borderline fascist, but an open racist and warmongerer who would - in ages past - have been tried for conspiracy and Crimes Against Peace.
We didn't need this, Mr. Lieberman. We didn't need you to further destroy an already-perilously precarious process (While we're on the subject of alliterations, I have to also note that the persistent power-mad punchups that are the norm with Likud are pissing me off). The peace process needed this like a shotgun blast to the head. The Arab League is ready to negotiate. Hamas and Fatah are even ready to negotiate. The United States is even ready to bend on some issues - despite the overwhelming presence of The Lobby, and yet we have a bunch of fascists running the government in Israel who refuse to even consider a peace process. They continue to divide and splinter where we should be trying to mend and heal. As MLK said, we are either going to live as brothers, or die as fools. It seems that Avigdor Lieberman prefers us to do the latter.