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Middle East peace talks are only just starting, but the pessimism about success has been quick to follow. The World’s Matthew Bell speaks with a number of Palestinians students to find out what they think of the latest effort to negotiate with the Israelis.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH, Boston. Israel’s Prime Minister accentuated the positive today to a visiting US congressional delegation. Benjamin Netanyahu said he thinks it is possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians within a year, the goal President Obama has set. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sounded less optimistic in an interview published today in a Palestinian newspaper. Abbas said he would not continue the negotiations if Jewish settlement construction resumes in three weeks. The mood among Abbas’ constituents in the West Bank is even gloomier as The World’s Matthew Bell discovered.

MATTHEW BELL:  Hebron is the biggest Palestinian city in the West Bank. For Jews, the city also has historical and religious significance. It’s the place where Abraham and his wife Sarah are said to be buried. The place has long been a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Last week, four Israelis from a nearby Jewish settlement were shot and killed in their car. It happened just as the Washington peace summit was about to begin. The Palestinian militant group Hamas claimed responsibility. In response, Palestinian security forces have reportedly made 750 arrests. Al Quds Open University sits on a hillside in a residential part of Hebron. It’s the first week of classes. Students are hanging out and catching up with friends in a shaded courtyard. Omar Eideh is a tall, skinny 18-year-old student from a local village. He says he was encouraged by last week’s news that the Palestinian Authority would start talking peace with Israel again.

SPEAKING ARABIC

BELL: But things changed quickly, Eideh says, after the shooting incident. He says Israel immediately put up a roadblock outside his village. A group of soldiers surrounded him and roughed him up. They were looking for information. But none of them spoke Arabic and he doesn’t speak Hebrew. The interrogation didn’t go anywhere and the soldiers just let him go. Unlike Omar, every other student I talk with is thoroughly dismissive of the peace talks sponsored by the Obama administration.

LINA HAMOURI: I think it’s all just talking and speaking and negotiating, that’s it.

BELL: Lina Hamouri is a 32-year-old mom who’s returning to school to study business administration. She wears a pink headscarf and lives in Hebron. When I ask her about the deadly shooting attack claimed by Hamas, she says killing hurts everyone here.

HAMOURI: We don’t like this, not for the Palestinian and not for the Jewish. But this is our life, we used to see the blood and the killing and I think we live a hopeless case.

BELL: Another student, 24-year-old Walid Jahbireh sits with a few buddies. Holding a set of prayer beads in one hand, he tells me he doesn’t agree with attacks against Israeli settlers. But a bit later in the conversation, he modifies his answer.

SPEAKING ARABIC

BELL: Psychologically, he says, the operation pleased me. But practically, I’m against it. There are too many negative repercussions. One of those repercussions is the Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank. Assad Ewaiwi is a professor of political science and history at Al Quds Open University.

SPEAKING ARABIC

BELL: Ewaiwi says it’s not surprising Palestinian security forces are waging a major campaign against Hamas right now. But he says many Palestinians view the crackdown as a breach of citizens’ freedoms that’s really meant just to please the Israelis. At the exit to the university campus, there’s a white pickup truck with the insignia of the Palestinian Authority security forces on the side. A man in uniform who doesn’t give his name tells me the crackdown continues. What’s the message you’re sending to Hamas, I ask?

SPEAKING ARABIC

MALE SPEAKER: We do not send messages, we go get them. We go get them.

BELL: Then, it’s no more questions, and the truck speeds away. Clearly, the crackdown is a sensitive issue right now. Palestinian security men seem to understand that they’re not especially popular. For The World, I’m Matthew Bell, Hebron, in the West Bank.

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