In one of our brainstorming meetings, I sat down this week with Fox News Jerusalem Bureau chief Eli Fastman to discuss Israel’s decision to start a 90 days settlement constructions freeze in the Palestinian territories. This is the way we evaluate the news– look into the future, anticipate future events and have a rough plan for covering the news.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced several days ago that he intended to declare a second settlement freeze after reaching an understanding with the US administration. The first Settlement freeze lasted 10 months and ended last September, during that time both sides failed to reach a peace agreement.

Israel has begun building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, following the Six-Day War. Today, more than a quarter of a million Israelis live in West Bank settlements.

In our staff meeting we asked ourselves several questions:

Why do Palestinians want a settlement freeze before starting negotiation?

Why are Israelis refusing to renew the freeze?

What has changed now?

What are the main Palestinian’s goals now?

And how is Israel going to use this period to achieve their interests?

Finally, what is going to happen on day 91– after the freeze?

According to Israeli reports, the Obama administration will ask Congress to approve giving Israel $3 billion worth of advanced F-35 jets. These would supplement the 20 F-35s Israel already plans to buy for $2.75 billion drawn from annual grants it gets from Washington.

Much of Europe has criticized Israel for not continuing the freeze.  Israel is aware of the backlash.

Palestinians want the borders to be discussed right away so Israel doesn’t build inside the ground of a future Palestinian State. Palestinians believe the current Israeli government wants to drag out negotiations without having to reach a final agreement. Under the previous negotiations with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinians negotiated without demanding any halt in settlement construction.

Discussing borders is important because it will decide the future of Jerusalem–another core issue of the negotiations. Palestinians say Netanyahu has refused to discuss the border issue because he knows that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is willing to compromise on swapping settlement blocs in the West Bank for land inside Israel. But in exchange, Israel will have to hand over parts or all of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

The current Israeli government is made up of a collation of right-wing parties that reject the idea of handing over Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  Many of them believe that the West Bank is part of Israel. Now, Netanyahu even has difficulties to achieve his cabinet approval for the 90 days freeze because of reports that it may include East Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to win narrow approval from his coalition government.  If he doesn’t, he’ll likely have to ask the Kadima party headed by Tzippi Livni to replace the right-wing parties in his coalition. In this situation, Netanyahu would likely share power with Livni– something he doesn’t want to do.  Livni’s Kadima party was established by Former Prime Minster Ariel Sharon who was considered right-wing and shares with Netanyahu many rejections to the Palestinian demands for dividing Jerusalem.

If negotiations start, Israel will focus mostly on security and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. The Palestinians say they have already fulfilled their security commitments in the West Bank.  For the first time since the eruption of the Palestinian Intifada in the year 2000, Israel has no Palestinian militants on their most-wanted list in the northern part of the West Bank, a former hub for recruiting Palestinian militants. In addition, the Palestinian Authority has recently arrested a Hamas cell that was planning a major attack on Israelis.  In regards to recognizing a Jewish state,  the Palestinians said they have already recognized Israel as a State during the Oslo agreement in 1993 and left it up to the Israelis to establish their religious identity.

Fast forward to 2010, we find ourselves trapped in the same murky issues. Both sides will blame each other for not achieving any progress.  If there is a 90 day freeze and no breakthroughs occur, we will be witnessing on day 91 another period of silence and quietness that will only be the calm before the storm erupts in the Middle East.