They are talking again

Special envoy of President Trump Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt continue to talk to all sides.
Mr Kushner has even said there will be a new "peace plan" in four months.
The question arises is how long can everyone collectively bang his head against the wall.?
Nothing will happen in four months.
Nothing.
Israel will not pull back to the 1967 borders and will not relinquish territory in Judea and Samaria.
It just won't happen.
Kushner wants to make a regional agreement of sorts that may pump some life into the process.
This agreement will talk about money for the Palestinian authority.
No more and no less.
It will not speak about any withdrawal from any settlements and probably not even say to stop settlement activity.
Hard to see how this is going forward.
The Israeli prime minister has just said there will never be any Israeli withdrawal from any settlement.
Well thats great!
The Arab side demands a COMPLETE withdrawal from all of Judea and Samaria.
Seems like a big gap to me.
An impossible gap that many still think will be settled.
It will not and cannot.
For things to stay the same is not a solution either.
Let's see what happens.

Annexation- there is no other way

Israels prime minister has proposed annexing parts of greater Jerusalem in exchange of "giving" parts of the Arab inhabited North to the PA.
He is very smart and knows that the Arab side will not except this proposal.
The Israeli Arabs certainly will not accept this, it is essaintly a non starter.
Nonetheless it is significant that annexation is being discussed at the highest levels of government.
The Prime Minister does understand that there are few real options for going forward with peace negotiations and is testing the waters with annexation options.
These logical proposals will convince anyone who needs convincing that the Arab side will never come to terms with Israel.
So when will annexation go forward?
There needs to be a simple vote in the knesset that starts this process.
There is not other way forward.

The quiet before the storm

The PA or Palestinian authority is in deep crisis.
Two of the major figures of the PA have severe health issues and may die very soon.
Saeb Berekat who has headed negotiations for the PA for over twenty years is suffering from an acute lung disease which will likely kill him.
Ironically he awaits a lung transplant from an Israeli source to survive.
This is the Israel he has accused for so long as being racist and genocidal.
The head of the PA is also suffering from health issues as rumors are saying different things as to how severe they might be.
If these two figures will go the vacuum that will be created will be substantive.
How all this will change the nature of the conflict is truly hard to predict.
To make things more complicated Hamas is simply destroying itself in the Gaza strip.
It has insisted on preparing for war with Israel instead of trying to rebuild infrastructure in the strip.
It has destroyed the Gaza Strip.
The breakdown of both the PA and Hamas may lead to a breakthrough in the never ending conflict.
President Asisi of Egypt has agreed to give a chunk of Sinai to extend the area of the palestinian area in the Gaza strip.
This idea has been bandied about for a while and now seems to make more sense.
The beleaguered Hamas and PA may agree to take this area and make it its "state"
This might be a adhoc solution for some issues that there seems to be no solution.
The refugee issue which has no real solution could be solved with refugees going to this new area.
The problem is that no one will want to go to a desolate area run by a jihadist extreme organization to live in abject poverty.
Nonetheless this idea may improve somewhat the situation and allow some sort of quiet fro a few years.
The Hamas with all its bellicosity is in a very weal position and is not ready to go to war with Israel.
They have built tunnels and made rockets but are not ready to fight.
Hard to say what will play out.
Israels military is very ready to take over the strip in case of war in a few days.
The next war will be the end of Hamas rule in the Strip.
Hamas seems to sense this and is very hesitant to start a conflict.
Seems to quiet.
That is disconcerting.

Next war

Here in the Middle East its not if a war will break out its just a question of when.
The Hamas seems to be very unready to wage war as their economy and little country are in shambles.
Nonetheless they may try as a desperation move to go to war at some point.
After the summer seems like a low probability as they would have initiated something in the summer.
Hard to gauge when this might start.
Not in next six months.
The Hizbulah has its hands full with its own civil war.
They have a great appetite to attack but also are nervous about the repercussions.
It will happen.
Hang on to your hats.