For Palestinians and probably Israelis, it was a week of more or less the same thing – international pressure to get the peace process back on track, failed negotiating efforts and the perpetual oppression of the occupation pushing down on the people. But for US President Barak Obama, this continuous lack of progress has apparently dawned on him like an ominous raincloud. In an interview with the US President published in Time magazine on January 21, Obama admitted to underestimating the task at hand. "I'll be honest with you, this is just really hard," Obama said, when asked about the Middle East.

Obama said he now realizes that despite all the efforts his administration put towards pushing for progress here, things were not moving as well as they had wanted.

"This is as intractable a problem as you get," Obama said. "Both sides - the Israelis and the Palestinians - have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that."

Still, Obama was reassuring that he had not given up hope. "Moving forward, though, we are going to continue to work with both parties to recognize what I think is ultimately their deep-seated interest in a two-state solution."

In his capacity as Obamas's emissary, the US's special envoy George Mitchell visited the Palestinian territories on January 21 but apparently left empty-handed. Apparently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Mitchell that even if a Palestinian state were established, Israel would insist on a military presence along its eastern border lining the Jordan Valley in order to ensure its "security".

The Palestinians were not too happy with that proposal. "We will not accept anything less than a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on all its territories, borders, resources and skies and we will not accept any Israeli military or civilian presence on our lands," responded presidential advisor Nabil Abu Rdeineh. "We will not accept that our state become an Israeli protectorate."

For his part, President Abbas also sent Mitchell home with no real breakthrough, maintaining his insistence that the Palestinians would not go back to the negotiating table with Israel unless settlement construction comes to a complete stop. Netanyahu, unsurprisingly, has used this as the perfect excuse to blame the Palestinians for the breakdown.

On January 22, Netanyahu called on the PA to "stop wasting time talking about how to enter the peace process," reiterating what he said was his government's readiness to enter into peace talks with no preconditions. That is, of course, after the Palestinians relinquish their claim over Jerusalem, recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept an Israeli military presence on their land.

Jerusalem was the scene of scuffles this week between Israeli police and border guards and a crowd of protesters including Israeli left-wing activities protesting the takeover of Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on January 22.

According to news reports, 20 demonstrators were arrested during a demonstration in the neighborhood, including former head of the Israeli Meretz Party Yossi Sarid. Several protesters sustained bruises and tear gas inhalation from the Israeli military crackdown of the protest, which they said was "illegal."

Also in Jerusalem on January 23, an entire family was assaulted in the Beit Safafa area of Jerusalem when an Israeli border guard chased down and beat a 14-year old Palestinian boy from the Elayyan near his home. When the boy's family came out to protect him they were beaten too, including a 60 year old woman. One brother, 26 year old Samer, was hospitalized after being run over by an Israeli police car. According to eyewitnesses at the scene, the attack was unprovoked and Israeli police nearby stood idle while the border guards were beating the family.

Israeli measures were felt this week as far as Al Lod and Jaffa inside Israel, both of which were originally Palestinian towns before the creation of Israel in 1948. On January 19, Israeli authorities there evacuated 400 Palestinian families from Jaffa and issued 30 demolition orders in the Arab towns of Lod and Ramleh under the pretext that the areas are agricultural zones.

As for Jewish settlements, they are not only continuing to grow despite the so called 10-month moratorium on their construction, they are being legitimized even further. On January 20, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak recognized a college in the West Bank settlement of Ariel as a "university center", thus granting it the status of universities in Israel. The move was seen by both Palestinians and left-wing Israelis as a move to further legitimize the illegal settlements in the West Bank and continue to enforce facts on the ground.

On a different not, Israel has finally paid the United Nations compensation for damages its military caused to UN facilities in the Gaza Strip during its invasion last year. However, instead of the US11.4 million the UN had originally requested from Israel, the two settled on $10.5 million for the damages.

Still, the Strip continues to languish under the years-long blockade. On January 17, Amnesty International released a briefing paper entitled, "Suffocating: The Gaza Strip under Israeli blockade" in which it describes how 1.4 million Palestinians cut off from the world are struggling with poverty and the task of rebuilding their lives.

“Israel claims that the ongoing blockade of Gaza, in force since June 2007, is a response to the indiscriminate rocket attacks launched from Gaza into southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups. The reality is that the blockade does not target armed groups but rather punishes Gaza’s entire population by restricting the entry of food, medical supplies, educational equipment and building materials,” said Malcolm Smart, Middle East and North Africa Director of Amnesty International.

"The blockade constitutes collective punishment under international law and must be lifted immediately,” read the briefing paper. Israel, of course, rejected the entire report as biased and flawed.