Another Israeli Housing Project Threatens a Peace Deal

In what has become a depressingly familiar routine, Israel has given final approval for construction of 2,610 housing units in geographically sensitive parts of East Jerusalem that will make it harder, maybe impossible, to reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

The timing of the decision, which came shortly before a meeting on Wednesday between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, also seems familiar: another in a string of calculated embarrassments that over the years have undermined American efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.