Israeli settlers flex muscle to resist peace talks led by John Kerry Just off Highway 60, the Israeli road that slices through the West Bank, ferrying Jewish settlers from jobs in Jerusalem to their hillside homes on occupied Palestinian lands, hang banners reading, "Preserve the country - don't surrender to Kerry." The Yesha Council, the administrative body that represents Israel's large and growing settler community in the occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, unveiled the message during protests at roadside junctions this month, along with an advertising campaign warning of what it says are the dangers posed by the peace talks led by John Kerry, the US secretary of state. Another banner, not sponsored by Yesha, warns motorists that "the third Oslo agreement" is nigh, with an image of a torch. "When it flares up, it will be too late," it warns. We must extinguish now. The campaign reflects the power of the settler lobby in Israel, which is bigger and better organised than at any time in the country's past. More than 500,000 Israelis live on land Israel seized during the 1967 Six day war in settlements that are illegal under international law. "The most vital interests and the most vital rights of Israel are on the table, and I suggest every citizen of Israel be involved," Dani Dayan, Yesha's chief foreign envoy, says in an interview at the Psagot winery, located in a Jewish settlement near the de facto Palestinian capital, Ramallah. Even if the chances of an agreement are slim, we want to be involved, and we have to influence the discussion. Rightwing politicians and lobbyists have been railing against the talks since Mr Kerry launched them last July, in parallel with Israel's release of the first of four groups of Palestinian prisoners. With the Americans now squeezing both sides to make commitments on core issues, such as borders and security, the backlash is gathering force. The urbane and amiable Mr Dayan, an Argentine-born former Tel Aviv businessman who moved to a northern West Bank settlement in 1988, calls the talks, under which the Americans are pushing both sides towards a framework of agreed principles leading to a final-status agreement, an "exercise in futility." "The problem is, it can cause collateral damage on the way: it can bring violence, cause frustration," he says. It can also make Israel make unnecessary concessions, like the abhorrent release of terrorists. Naftali Bennett, the economy minister and head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, reacted angrily on Sunday to remarks attributed to an official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, who said that some settlements might in future fall under Palestinian sovereignty. "We did not return to the land of Israel, after 2,000 years of longing, to live under the government of [President] Mahmoud Abbas," he said. Israeli moderates and leftwingers are also rallying, writing and speaking up in favour of a peace deal, but their numbers have been small and they have struggled to be heard amid the widespread scepticism on the peace talks. Yair Lapid, the finance minister, recently rallied hundreds of members of his middle-of-the-road Yesh Atid party's supporters at road intersections around Israel, bearing signs saying "Parting in Peace." "We must not leave the streets to those who object to the peace process," Mr Lapid told party activists gathered in the coastal cities of Tel Aviv and Netanya. Analysts say the battle for public opinion for or against a peace deal will be hardest fought in Israel's political centre. The first of Yesha's adverts focused on security in the Jordan valley, where Israel wants to maintain troops after an independent Palestine is created, a demand the Palestinians reject as an affront to their sovereignty. The advert quotes past prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin on the need to "safeguard the Jordan valley." Mr Dayan describes the campaign as "moderate" and "not aggressive." "When you talk about the general Israeli public, the centre does not support settlers but the centre believes that for security reasons the Jordan valley is important," says Shlomo Avineri, professor of politics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dayan has realised that getting people to defend the settlements is difficult but getting them to defend the Jordan valley will give [the settlers] a larger constituency. Future adverts in the campaign will focus on a "united Jerusalem," Mr Dayan says - reflecting many Israelis" refusal to brook a Palestinian capital in the occupied Arab east of the city - and "the impossibility of defending the 1967 borders." Yesha's campaign "doesn't attack Mr Netanyahu," says Mr Dayan, who endorsed him in last year's election, but since then it, like many rightwing members of the prime minister's Likud party, has criticised him for not taking a tougher stance in the talks. The prime minister's adoption of a two-state solution is "a departure from Likud policies [and] we regret it," he says.