The Economist: (Kerry) may be getting somewhere - about Israel/Palestine

[karynnj]

FEW believed that John Kerry, the American secretary of state, would manage to haul the Israelis and Palestinians back into the negotiating room, let alone get them to discuss anything of substance. Yet six months since talks began, he may be able to present, within weeks, a “framework agreement”, after which final details must be hammered out. Diplomats who had mocked his dogged prophetic conviction now sound shocked by his progress. Rejectionists on both sides who quietly presumed that the process would collapse under its own weight now express alarm.

Consternation and confusion are visible on the faces of some ministers in Binyamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government. The day that its justice minister was championing a negotiated two-state settlement at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, its trade minister was damning it at Tel Aviv’s. No sooner had the foreign minister called for moving Israel’s Arab citizens into a Palestinian state as part of a land-swap, than the interior minister made a rare visit to a northern Arab town to hail its inhabitants as integral to Israel’s body politic. Mr Netanyahu, for his part, floats above the fray. “We’re lacking a leader,” says Dov Weisglass, once the close adviser of Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister who, as The Economist went to press, was on the verge of death, after six years in a coma.

Mr Kerry’s methodical midwifery may be paying off. His team of 120, including four generals, has almost as great a command of detail as do the Israelis and Palestinians. “What matters is a settlement, not lots of settlements,” says Mr Kerry.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21593478-john-kerry-may-be-gradually-persuading-enough-israeli-right-wingers

Interesting article that gives Kerry a lot of credit for the seriousness of his efforts. IMO, this will test if there really is any possibility of a two state solution.

[JI7]

1. i wonder if the comments from the hardliners in Israel are actually a good sign

it's one of those things where people who lose their usual support start going to the media.

we see this happen in US politics a lot when people leak things to the media to try to create a story .

[karynnj]

2. I think you are correct

It has always seemed the case that when there might be real change on any heated issue, it means both sides accepting a compromise. As it is approached, the extremists on each side often act to stop it under the (in many cases delusional) view that they can get everything they want by not compromising.

I have been using google to get bios of people who have spoken out -- such as the Defense Minister today. You would think the American media would try to provide that context. The Defense Minister, for example, was a senior fellow at the Adelson Foundation when out of government and is pictured with "activist" Pam Geller! on his wiki bio page. He has made incendiary comments about Palestinians -- even calling them "a cancer".

I think it is never a good bet that a final deal will be made here - but, it was a long shot for talks to start and a long shot for them to continue. Remember that BOTH pay a price for continuing. The Palestinians will not advocate for action in the UN and Israel has released several groups of prisoners. This means NEITHER are doing this just to make Kerry (or Obama) happy, but because they both see the problems in continuing the status quo.