On Monday, July 29, for the first time since 2010, Israelis and Palestinians met for peace negotiations. Secretary of State John Kerry, who finagled the resumption, predicted an agreement in nine months. That leaves six more months, but from various news sources over the past three months, that seems unlikely.
Indeed most pundits have predicted the opposite — “inevitable breakup” in the words of Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin — believing the talks were doomed from the get go, and were more of an exercise in demonstrating goodwill toward the United States than a sincere interest in the other. This type of chatter seems, so far, to be more accurate than Kerry’s wildly optimistic prediction.
Controversy over settlement building continues; Israelis remain unhappy with lopsided prisoner releases; and Palestinian spokespeople regularly mention their disenchantment with both the progress of negotiations.
IJN readers won’t be surprised by these reports that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are in danger of falling apart. When this latest round of talks began, we ran an online poll asking whether you were optimistic or pessimistic and close to half of you (45.6%) said pessimistic. The primary reason? “Because Palestinians aren’t committed to living side by side with Israel.” (Another 7% voted pessimistic, “because we’ve been here before without any results.” Or in the words of the Times of Israel: “The yawn of a new era.”)
Only 19.3% of IJN readers believe that the peace process can or will be successful, 15.8% “because it’s in both sides’ interest” and 3.5% because of Kerry’s perseverance. So even if Kerry believes in his own power of convincing, it appears that IJN readers don’t agree with the Secretary of State’s self-assessment.
We ran our poll in September, just as the first round of talks were underway. Have you changed your view since then? Are you encouraged by the mere fact that talks continue? Or, if you’re still as pessimistic as ever, is it for the same reasons?
All views and answers welcome in a comment!
