Roy Isacowitz is a journalist and writer living in Tel Aviv, according to the tag line under his op-ed published on the Haaretz website today. I don’t remember reading anything else from him before, but among the hundreds of columns about the current negotiations that I’ve read over the last few months, his is among the clearest and most forthright.

Granted, like almost everything in the Israeli press, even from progressive writers, his framework is Judeo-centric: by “we” he means Israeli Jews, and he makes only passing reference to what “this mess” means for Palestinians.

Still, compared to most of what you read about the negotiations, Isacowitz’s column is pretty bracing stuff. He begins:

I don’t believe that John Kerry’s mission will accomplish anything other than finally proving that the United States is unable to be an honest broker in the Israel-Palestine dispute and should drop the charade. Even if the secretary of state forces Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas into a framework agreement, it will be a sham, a short-lived sop to American power rather than a sign of true intent on the part of either leader. Nevertheless, in compelling the Israeli government to confront issues that it would much rather avoid, Kerry’s persistence has done some good. As the mission comes down to the wire, Israel has been forced into ridiculous posturing and inane sloganeering that only highlight just how hidebound the country really is, how stuck we are in 100 years of lies, bombast and self-delusion without the slightest idea of how to move forward. Netanyahu’s statement to the Likud Knesset faction on Sunday that he has “no solution” to the so-called Palestinian problem was an astounding admission. Almost 68 years after the founding of the state, 46 years after the occupation of the West Bank and 18 years after Netanyahu first became prime minister, Israel still has no clue about how to handle the Palestinian issue. Astounding, but not exactly surprising. …Surely, given all that time, effort and money, intelligent people would have come up with something. A teeny-weeny plan even?

Isacowitz understands, though, that the problem isn’t really that Israel is “hidebound,” and he recognizes that Netanyahu’s “no solution” line is just another lie:

The reality, of course, is that Israel does have a solution. It’s just that it’s difficult to talk about it with a straight face. Israel’s solution, ever since the time of Yitzhak Shamir, if not long before, is to do nothing. That’s the solution: not-so-benign neglect. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, to play for time. To hope that, given enough time, something will happen that will get us out of this mess. Perhaps the Palestinians will decide on their own volition to get up and leave. And, if they don’t decide that, perhaps hedging them in with settlements, stealing their land and making their lives miserable will persuade them to do so. Maybe the West will suffer mass amnesia and leave us alone, maybe a nifty little earthquake will demolish the mosques on the Temple Mount or some deadly bacterium will only target Palestinians. Anything can happen – and we intend to be in possession of the land when it does.

So why does Israel even bother with the “peace process”?