Indifference, inertia or just plain laziness?

Kerry hints settlers might not be evacuated as part of deal | The Times of Israel

US asked Israel for partial settlement freeze — report | The Times of Israel 

This entire process of shepherding the current peace talks towards some as yet unspecified end phase is already beginning to feel like a much longer slog than was first anticipated. Nine months or even a whole year may now be far too little time for any new or significant developments. Since a sudden rush to resolution seems even more remote, settlement of any sort must be ruled out of the question as things stand at present. And as they have stood for quite some time.

Should these matters really be so difficult, so fraught with this many twists and turns? The way things are going, any actual settlement is very likely to become lost in the shuffle.

What’s really needed is something much less fragile, an arrangement everyone can readily absorb and to which their fullest support (or grudging acceptance) can be given. Then, if the expected results are transparent and easy enough to live with, the procedure could be good to go for all the years and generations that lie ahead.

Requirements for a new arrangement::

1.  It has to be a quick fix, up and running with little delay and no foot-dragging by principals or third-parties.

2.  It has to have a finality about it, a dedicated drive towards the resolution of primary concerns.

3.  It has to be easy to understand, not some arcane formulation undecipherable by all but the most erudite of political pundits and commentators.

4.  It has to be intrinsically unbiased, no possibility of favouring one side over the other.

5.  It has to have mathematical certainty and direction, no fuzzy edges to distort its purpose and steer it into one of those omnipresent dead-ends.

And, after decades of conflict without even the faintest prospect of closure, isn’t this the very thing that should be promoted, undertaken and maintained in what otherwise looks to be a very sad and risky future for the region?

Why bother with doomed-from-the-start peace initiatives, probes, wishful thinking, accommodations, testing of the waters, policies which have no hope of survival, let alone remedy? These might create employment for those in diplomatic circles and be a platform for every politician wishing to impart his or her own take on such matters. But, if nothing can ever be settled, no conclusion reached by moving forward on the issues, then what is the point? It’s a complete waste of time, time in which only further deterioration can be expected from a situation already degraded far too much as it is. With all former attempts at rescue having come to naught and the current one looking decidedly less than healthy, it might do everyone a power of good to stand well back from the fray and let a more direct and far less divisive mode of operation render a verdict.

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What? There’s an easier solution? Really! Then why haven’t we all heard about it well before now? Or is it that, strange as it seems, after over twenty thousand deaths and seven long decades, no one feels the need for any urgency in the handling of this matter?