There is a deep reason the majority of Israelis and Palestinians can't move toward the two-state solution.
After more than a year in which both Obama and Netanyahu have been in office, the truly minuscule movement of resuming indirect peace talks is currently the only achievement on the peace front. Whose fault is this? The Middle East has been prone to an endless blame game. The Palestinians accuse Israel of not wanting peace, and justifiably point to the proliferation of settlements in the West Bank. Israeli commentators point out that the Palestinians have opted out every time Israel proposes something that they should accept, as in the Taba Summit of 2001 and during Olmert's talks with Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas).
This discussion does not only take place between Palestinians and Israelis, but also inside Israel. There are the commentators like Akiva Eldar and Gideon Levy who consistently argue that Israel has misrepresented its offers; that Ehud Barak's 'There is no Partner' line from the year 2000 covers up the truth that Israel never made viable offers. Then again there are commentators like Nachum Barnea and Ehud Yaari, who, in his recent article in Foreign Affairs, argue that the Palestinians don't really want a state, and that they are actually waiting for the moment where they can, as he puts it, 'fall into Israel's arms,' dismantle the Palestinian Authority and force a binational state on Israel, thus ending the possibility of Israel's being a Jewish and democratic state.
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