Only little public or political debate has been generated by the fascinating Feb. 12 expose on the Walla news website, according to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pulled out of a framework agreement with the Palestinians in July 2011, at the last minute. This is the case despite its importance to an electorate that will choose Israel’s next prime minister March 17.

According to journalist Avi Issacharoff, President Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, had conducted advanced talks for a year, with Netanyahu’s knowledge, and formulated a framework agreement for renewing negotiations between the two sides. The framework agreement was based on the familiar plan for two states within the 1967 lines and with land swaps, with discussion of the refugee and Jerusalem issues to be postponed to negotiations on a permanent agreement.

That the talks took place had previously been revealed by Ben Caspit, who reported Aug. 1, 2011, that Netanyahu had imposed a last-minute veto on a meeting between Peres and Abbas, scheduled to take place in Amman July 28, because he did not want negotiations to go forward. The extent of the talks between the two sides, however, and their advanced stages, are only now being revealed.

One might have thought that the issue of negotiations with the Palestinians would have interested Israelis in the current election campaign, given the escalation of unilateral Palestinian moves at the United Nations and the erosion of Israel’s standing in Europe and the United States during the past six years of Netanyahu rule. Israelis, however, were busy this week with campaign video clips of the various candidates, Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress and the storm it has generated, the affair involving Sara Netanyahu’s recycled bottle deposits, upcoming layoffs at the Israel Chemicals plant in the south, the scandal over the Israel Prize and the prime minister’s attack on Yedioth Ahronoth and its owner, Noni Moses. Without making light of this long list of issues, it highlights two things: the first is that a month before the March 17 elections, the chairman of the Likud is dictating the agenda and steering it to areas in which he enjoys an advantage; the second is that there is no significant and serious political and public debate about the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.