Why Peace Talks Will Fail

As proximity peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians appear to give way to a resumption of direct negotiations, the parties will shift their attention from pre-negotiation maneuvering to the substance of the negotiations themselves. When they do, conventional wisdom will reassert itself. That wisdom holds that there is already in existence at least the general shape of a deal to which both sides can agree. It is a modified version of what Yasir Arafat walked away from at Camp David and then at Taba in 2000, what an unofficial group of Israelis and Palestinians presented at Geneva in 2003, and what Mahmoud Abbas failed to answer definitively when it was presented to him by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. With some fine-tuning, the chorus of pundits will say, perhaps an agreement can be consummated. President Obama himself said, during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington on July 6, that he thinks an agreement can be readied within the year.

This is an illusion. There are important elements of the hypothetical deal itself to which each of the parties has strong objection. Even if those could be overcome, there are two greater obstacles standing in the way of permanent peace. The first concerns whether the negotiating partners, having agreed among themselves, are able to bring along enough others on their side to make peace. The second is even more daunting: Can either side make a credible commitment to deliver the future—that is, can a peace agreement, duly signed and sealed, really end the conflict once and for all? At this time, the answer to these questions is no.