The complete idiot’s guide to MidEast peace (part16)

‘Israel offers to free 400 more prisoners if Abbas extends talks’ | The Times of Israel

What is the point of extending peace talks for another six months when almost nine of them have already gone by with virtually no discernible movement from either side? Is this just playing for time or can it be something else?

Prisoner releases have taken place but that’s about all; little more seems to have stirred negotiations to greater things nor has anything radically new been added to the agenda.

The problem with every one of these peace talks, from the very first to this latest US-backed venture, has been a lack of even the most rudimentary dynamism in their structure.

They are always too static and ill-equipped to cope with such volatile and diametrically opposing viewpoints. The situation here demands give and take from both parties but ‘giving’ anything to the ‘other’ without a closely matching quid pro quo in return is fraught with difficulty and some real measure of danger. Thus the long impasse between Palestinians and Israelis still reaches all the way to the negotiating table and even beyond.

Is it time then to introduce a spoiling factor, a means of accelerating the pace of change, a new dynamic to be superimposed upon an old and sagging framework?

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