Hurdles abound for Middle East peace talks, but is there a ray of hope?
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With a new round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set to begin on Thursday, critics cite a number of reasons for pessimism: neither side appears willing to make major concessions and each is there merely to appease Washington.
But there may be a ray of hope, others argued, as both sides support a two-state solution, violence on the ground is way down and each side is exhausted by the conflict.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has set a one-year deadline for striking a deal, but critics said the timeline is much too ambitious, as efforts by previous U.S. administrations over many years have failed to resolve the conflict.
While some have applauded Obama for bringing the issue to the front burner, others said the potential for success is low.
The Palestinian leadership is weakened by a rift between Fatah and Hamas, and Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas has no other options but to accept what Obama is presenting, some analysts argued.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the governing coalition have shown little interest in a negotiated solution with the Palestinians, some experts said.
Robert Danin, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, argued on the organization's website that trust is absent from Israeli-Palestinian relations, as the Second Intifada of 2001-2003 killed not only thousands of Israelis and Palestinians, but also demolished the sense for most that peace is possible.
Abbas also recently threatened to pull out of the negotiations unless Netanyahu agreed to extend a moratorium on the building of new settlements, which expires at the end of September.
Despite such concerns, there are reasons for optimism, some analysts said.
Martin S. Indyk, vice president and director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, contended that the current negotiating environment is more conducive to peace than at any point in the last decade.
Now, peace depends on the leaders' willpower, he wrote in the New York Times. The violence that plagued the region in the 1990s is way down and the PNA is policing the West Bank to thwart attacks on Israelis and prove that it is reliable as a negotiating partner, he argued.
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