How do we respond to Kerry? I donat know of anyone familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict _ across the board _ who sees in the Kerry initiative anything other than an attempt to impose on the Palestinians a Pax Israeliana. In fact, neither Kerry nor his Israeli partners bother to deny it. For his part, Kerryas main contribution to this latest incarnation of the long-moribund _peace process_ is a vague $4 billion package of _incentivesa _ part of what Amira Hass calls hush money _ that bears a striking resemblance to the _economic peace_ Netanyahu and Peres have been trying to peddle for years. Otherwise, Kerry is merely pressing the Palestinians to accept Israelas preconditions for negotiations and its version of a two-state solution: no end to settlement construction, land expropriation, house demolitions (28,000 Palestinian homes demolished since 1967, and counting) or displacement; recognition of Israel as a _Jewish_ state; the imposition of the Clinton Parameteras on East Jerusalem (_what is Jewish is Israeli, what is Arab is Palestinian,_ thus eliminating completely any kind of coherent urban entity that might serve as the Palestiniansa capital); Israelas retention of at least six major settlement _blocs,_ strategically placed to fragment the West Bank into disconnected and impoverished cantons while isolating what remains of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; long-term or permanent Israeli military control over the Jordan Valley and Palestineas borders with Egypt and Jordan _ well, the list goes on: Israeli control over Palestinian airspace, over their electromagnetic sphere (communications), etc. etc. etc.