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Mideast talks begin amid doubts, litany of obstacles

Kerry says goal is ‘reasonable compromises’

Secretary of State John F. Kerry believes the United States cannot stand on the sidelines in the Mideast.AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — For all of the intricacies of issues like the shape of future borders, security arrangements, and the status of Jerusalem, the Middle East peace talks that resumed Monday night are dominated by two simple questions.

If it took Secretary of State John Kerry countless phone calls and six trips to the region just to get Israeli and Palestinian officials to the negotiating table, how will it be possible to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement? And what will happen if his herculean negotiating efforts fall short?

In a brief appearance at the State Department on Monday, Kerry said his goal was to pursue “reasonable compromises” of some of the Middle East’s most intractable issues. “I know the negotiations are going to be tough, but I also know that the consequences of not trying could be worse,” he said.

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At a working dinner, Kerry opened preliminary talks with Israel’s justice minister, Tzipi Livni, and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. The central issues include how to arrange for Israel’s security needs; whether and how to divide Jerusalem to create a Palestinian capital; what to do about Palestinian refugees seeking to return home; and where to draw the borders for a future Palestinian state.

Kerry announced that Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, will run the talks for the United States. Indyk, who will take a leave from the Brookings Institution, has deep contacts in the region.

President Obama marked the resumption of talks with a cautious statement Monday. ‘‘This is a promising step forward, though hard work and hard choices remain ahead,’’ Obama said.

In making the revival of the Middle East talks his top priority, Kerry is not only challenging the status quo in the region but also taking on conventional wisdom in much of the US foreign policy establishment.

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The prevailing narrative among the pundits, including more than a few experienced Middle East hands, is that while the Israelis and Palestinians may have sent their negotiators to Washington to placate Kerry, neither side appears remotely prepared to make the hard calls needed to cement a lasting peace.

Some experts argue that it may even be risky to try.

“The existence of talks can have a calming effect while they continue, and if they continue for several months can get us through the UN General Assembly without bitter Israeli-Palestinian confrontations,” said Elliott Abrams, who was a senior official on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council.

“But I see no realistic possibility that a final status agreement can be reached now,” Abrams said. “I just hope there are two State Department teams: one to work on the talks, and the other to start planning for what to do when they fail.’’

In recent weeks, Kerry and his aides have outlined several basic arguments for why his efforts might bear fruit. Perhaps the most important one, which Kerry has advanced from almost the moment he was picked for the State Department post, is that the United States does not have the luxury of staying on the sidelines.

With the Palestinians poised to take their claim for statehood to the International Criminal Court and other UN bodies, American officials say, the two sides were facing a downward spiral in which the Israelis would respond by cutting off financing to the Palestinian territories and European nations might curtail their investment in Israel.

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Another argument Kerry has used is that diplomatic progress would foster as much as $4 billion in private sector investment in the Palestinian economy. He has also reasoned that he can make headway by taking a fresh look at Israel’s security requirements and the arrangements to safeguard them.

John R. Allen, the retired general who used to lead the Afghanistan campaign, has been working to define what those requirements would be in any West Bank territory that is handed back to the Palestinians.

Kerry extracted a commitment that the two sides would give the talks at least nine months, which provides some time to explore ideas without fears of a walkout.

One argument that Kerry and his team has been careful not to make publicly, but that Arab, Israeli, and American officials have begun to speculate about, is that something less than a comprehensive settlement might be achievable.

The final status talks so far have been the Camp David summit meeting and Taba talks in 2000 and 2001, the Annapolis process from 2007 to 2008, and the brief round of discussions in 2010 between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.

The guiding principle in those talks has been that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed upon, that any deal reached must mean the end of the conflict and the end of claims by either side.

Many experts now say this principle ought to be changed, given the deep lack of trust between the two sides, the political constraints both are under, and the big gaps in their positions.

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“They have got to get rid of this mantra,” said Yossi Alpher, a strategic analyst who has been involved in the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue for years. “If nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” he said, “they will agree on nothing.”