The deadly attack June 8 in the dynamic heart of Tel Aviv immediately turned public attention away from the other burning issue on Israel's agenda: the recent discussions regarding the intentions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman to jump-start the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority. The question is, how serious are these intentions?

Even before examining the political feasibility of such a process — given that the government is extremely right-wing and that Naftali Bennett, chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi (the Jewish Home religious Zionist political party), announced he would quit the government if the diplomatic process was restarted — we cannot ignore the effect of the terror attack at Tel Aviv's Sarona Market shopping center on this agenda.

The murder of four Israelis in a Tel Aviv restaurant comes after almost three quiet months in which it seemed that the terror wave was slowly dying down. However, it is clear now that such estimations were premature.

In these three months, and even more so in recent weeks, Netanyahu has been working to attach the Zionist Camp party to his government. The prime minister did not agree that opposition Chairman Isaac Herzog’s entrance into the government would come at the expense of the HaBayit HaYehudi. Netanyahu even refused to give Herzog the diplomatic negotiations portfolio. Netanyahu's promises were very general and were partially based on his past support of the two-state solution expressed in his 2009 Bar Ilan speech.