Let’s face it: Current political realities have made a final status agreement between Israelis and Palestinians unachievable now. So Israelis need to focus instead on creating conditions, on both sides, in which an accord might be possible in the future.
To be sure, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s visit to Israel last month and President Trump’s scheduled meeting on Wednesday with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, could lead to new talks.
But even if they do, resumed negotiations now would almost certainly fail — or boomerang. Every other attempt at direct, bilateral negotiations has failed, and violence has often followed. Each disappointment, in turn, only deepens the profound mistrust and misunderstandings between the leaders on both sides, which further erodes confidence among Israelis and Palestinians that peace can ever be attained.
In short, the peace process is broken.