If a series of reports in The Jerusalem Post this week is accurate, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is aware of and possibly even directing clandestine talks on the future of Jerusalem.

The back-channel talks, according to these same reports, are looking at ways to divide Jerusalem between Jews and Arabs in a way that the city could be the capital of both the State of Israel and the nascent State of Palestine.

Such dual-track negotiations have been used before, notably leading up to the 1978 Camp David Agreement and resulting in the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Veteran diplomats, at least some who have been involved in trying to find a solution to the century-long Arab-Jewish conflict, believe that because of the strong, in fact intractable positions both sides hold on the so-called core issues - final borders of Israel and “Palestinian,” sovereignty in Jerusalem, the “Palestinian” refugees “right of return,” the allocation of water resources - solutions are unattainable through open talks.

The reasoning is that the constituents on both sides - the Israeli and Palestinian public - will not allow their representatives to go too far down the road towards compromising on these issues before they pull the plug on them and, one way or the other, the negotiations break down. If enough progress can be made outside the spotlight of public scrutiny so that a promising outcome can then be presented to the public, this might overcome the  hurdles and bring a final solution within reach.

In practice, the back channel route has and will involve deception and possibly even a breach of the law.

In the case of the 1992-1993 secret talks in Oslo, Israeli officials, under the direction of their own political leaders, broke the law prohibiting the holding of negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Prime Minister Olmert has been warned in letters from attorneys representing two Jerusalem organizations that discussions with US President George W. Bush or PLO/PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas regarding a possible division of Jerusalem are in violation of Israeli law.

According to Attorney Baruch Ben-Yosef, author of one of the letters, Clauses 5 and 6 of one of Israel’s cardinal laws - Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel - mean that Jerusalem’s status as the united and sole capital of Israel may not be compromised.

The rotten fruits of the lies and subterfuge of the illegal back channel talks that led to Oslo were evidenced in the massive explosion of terrorism and violence that lead to the death of thousands of Israelis and the dangerous erosion of Israel’s security, which has not been restored.

Heaven alone knows what will come from these efforts to secure yet another “peace” agreement by subterfuge and deception, this time playing with the volatile issue of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem - the seat of Israel’s greatest kings and the city the Jews prayed daily for 2000 years to return to; which comprises one of the pillars of their nationhood.

Jerusalem - while not mentioned once in the Quran, long-labeled “one of the most hotly-contested pieces of real estate on earth” amid expressed fears of the conflagration that would break out, led by the world’s billion-plus Muslims, if Israel succeeded in securing full control over the city.

Jerusalem - City of God, which city God says He will make “a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples” and “a very heavy stone for all peoples” so that “all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.” (Zechariah 12: 2,3)