Kerry’s Path Steepens in Israeli-Palestinian Talks

The developments could portend a harder line from Israel toward the Palestinians, and increase the pressure on Mr. Kerry to play a more muscular mediating role, three months after his intense personal campaign lured the adversaries back to negotiations after years of impasse. 

On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry pressed Israel more forcefully than he had before to limit new construction of settlements “in an effort to help create a climate for these talks to be able to proceed effectively.” But his own effort to cool temperatures came amid growing signs of a poisoned atmosphere, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel bluntly accusing the Palestinian leadership of fomenting distrust and evading difficult decisions.

The acquittal of Avigdor Lieberman, the former Israeli foreign minister who is among Israel’s most powerful and polarizing politicians, of corruption charges could further complicate matters. Mr. Lieberman is an outspoken nationalist and a West Bank settler, though his views on the peace process are not sharply different from Mr. Netanyahu’s. But his triumphant return to power — likely again as foreign minister — makes Mr. Lieberman an unpredictable force. 

Mr. Kerry, who came to Jerusalem to recapture the initiative in the moribund talks, struggled to keep them from slipping into a familiar cycle of recrimination on Wednesday. Under pressure from President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, he declared that the Palestinians had not accepted continued building in settlements as an Israeli condition for restarting talks, despite what Israeli leaders had indicated. 

“That is not to say that they weren’t aware, or we weren’t aware, that there would be construction,” Mr. Kerry said after meeting with Mr. Abbas in Bethlehem, in the West Bank. 

He emphasized that the United States considers the settlements to be “illegitimate.”

But hours before in Jerusalem, Mr. Kerry had sat stone-faced as Mr. Netanyahu said he was concerned about the prospect for progress in the talks “because I see the Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crises, continuing to avoid, run away from the historic decisions that are necessary to make a genuine peace.” 

The dispute over settlements, officials said, led to a shouting match between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Tuesday at their 16th session, as Mr. Kerry arrived here. While increasing expressions of outrage, particularly by the Palestinians, may be as much an effort to appease constituents as a reflection of what is happening at the negotiating table, the need to show steadfastness on both sides is a hint of the hurdles Mr. Kerry faces. 

Add to that delicate and complex equation Mr. Lieberman, 55, an immigrant from the Soviet Union and a populist hard-liner who has alienated international diplomats with undiplomatic outbursts and been both an important partner and an occasional rival to Mr. Netanyahu. Although he will not play a direct role in the peace talks even if he returns as foreign minister, he has embarrassed the prime minister by declaring, at inopportune times, that any agreement is decades away and by accusing Mr. Abbas of “diplomatic terrorism.” 

For Israel’s governing coalition, already deeply fractured over the Palestinian issue, the question now is whether Mr. Lieberman will join those challenging Mr. Netanyahu from the right, making a peace deal even more remote, or shift toward the center to expand his political base for a future campaign to become prime minister. An indication may come at the end of this month when the party he founded in 1999, Yisrael Beiteinu, decides whether to solidify the alliance it forged with Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party for this year’s elections and fully merge into a single faction, or break apart and operate independently again. 

“This is a man who works long-term: he’s not a tactician only, he’s a good strategist,” said Prof. Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University. “I don’t know whether he will split away from Netanyahu and say, ‘I’m the replacement from outside,’ or whether he will say, ‘O.K., I’ll try and support Netanyahu and one day be his successor.’ ”