Throwing in the towel

Kerry: Peace ultimately requires full IDF pullout from Palestinian areas | The Times of Israel

Mr. Kerry seems to see the overall position clearly enough. So does Mr. Netanyahu and, no doubt, Mr. Abbas is equally cognisant of all the issues involved.

The problem is that each of them is looking at that exact same position through lenses shaped largely by their own political and personal acquaintanceship with the situation as they see it. The challenge, therefore, must be to find some common ground, a shared viewpoint where, no matter what differences of opinion or direction still dominate, all sides are then able to move forward in the full knowledge that many and maybe all of their own hopes and ambitions for the future are guaranteed to come true.

This happy circumstance would require a complete cessation of the present and rather haphazard state of play that has always existed between the principal parties here. In other words, there will have to be certain new rules from now on, all of them collated in a proper public manner and backed up by referees and penalties to enforce said rules should they be broken or even slightly bent in any way.

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Otherwise, with even the dogged Mr. Kerry seemingly on the point of throwing in the towel, the conflict must go on, get worse and, once again, descend into yet another trial of strength, one from which recovery is likely to be even more problematic than it was the last time.