The Obama administration initiative to bring together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for face-to-face talks in Washington is notable for two reasons. It has set the tone for future negotiations. Instead of dealing with peripherals, Israelis and Palestinians will from now on focus on issues that are at the heart of their dispute — the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future state of Palestine, and the right to return of millions of Palestinian refugees who were uprooted by the wars of 1948 and 1967. Secondly, the Washington summit has set a demanding one-year timeline to resolve all the outstanding issues. The whole world knows that, notwithstanding the positive spin imparted, nothing short of a miracle will fulfil the lofty aspirations spelt out for these talks. The reason is perfectly obvious: Israel's obsession with its security and its fixation with its Jewish majority status will continue to undermine the emergence of a viable Palestinian state. Citing security considerations, Israel's ruling elite has virtually dismissed the formation of a Palestinian state defined along 1967 frontiers.
Some influential Israeli think tanks, which are believed to reflect the Netanyahu administration's thinking, have advocated that Israel should exercise complete physical control over the entire Jordan valley, the eastern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as the airspace to the west of it. Such a hawkish stance on borders conflicts fundamentally with the Palestinian territorial aspirations — and is bound to be rejected. With its Jewish majority status being cited as central to its national identity, there is also not much hope that Israel will lower its hostility towards the right to return of millions of displaced Palestinians, most of whom are currently packed in impoverished refugee camps across West Asia. This unwillingness to contemplate a just solution to core final status issues implies that once again Palestinian negotiators will be left empty-handed. Without substantial gains, Mr. Abbas and his team will be powerless to carry the majority of Palestinians with them. Mr. Abbas's failure will also greatly embolden militant Hamas, which, in any case, has to be drawn into negotiations at some point. A serious shortcoming of the Washington summit has been its inability to address the relevance of Iran and Syria in the resolution of the Israel-Palestine dispute. Without the involvement of Tehran and Damascus — the core supporters of Hamas, which rules the coastal Gaza strip — there is little hope that a stable and independent Palestine, at peace with Israel, will emerge any time soon.