[Goater]

Whilst I have no love for the Palestinian people, I think the tone of the OP is not helpful. The Palestinian people, through their own fault and not, are the biggest victims of this situation and Israelis are clearly not secure (as individuals) from terror.

I have discussed in previous threads why I think that peace has not been found and i dont want to get into another arguament regarding the minutiae of the various prior peace proceses. However, I will just say that there is zero chance of anything good coming from this new dialogue.

The key question is why is this happening now? My speculation is that bush wants some sort of peace process to deflect from the failure of the Iraq campaign (not likely to be succesful), to placate muslims and possibly build a coalition of arab states for a potential move against Iran (not likely to work), to leave a legacy of something good (as its unlikely to succeed, this wont work either). To be honest, im not sure why the US is pushing this as I cant believe that they believe it could be successful.

From the Israeli side, Olmert is grabbing at straws as he is the most unpopular Israeli Prime Minister in the country's history. He has no mandate for sweeping unilateral concessions to the Palestinians and is trying to placate the voting public by looking like he is doing something for peace. Sharon did the same thing, Barak also.

On the Palestinian side, Abbas is so weak that he cannot possibly follow through on anything he agrees on with the Israelis. He is virtually insignificant inside the Palestinian territories. Were he to agree to a genuine deal, he would probably be dead within the month.

Each side has its own reasons for going ahead with this process, none of which are that real peace is achievable or possible at the moment. Thats whats so sad about all this... and whats so dangerous. Every time hopes and feelings are raised and failure ensues, a spasm of violence is the consequence. This was seen most recently with the failure of Oslo and the start of the second intifada. The games these idiots are playing will eventually mean the death of many Israelis and Palestinians.

Is anyone seriously thinking that the weakest Israeli leader ever and the weakest Palestinian leader ever can get together with the most hated US president ever and somehow succeed where so many have failed in the past!?