Hussein Ibish: The three-way Israeli-Palestinian impasse- Israel, the PA and Hamas are all trapped in their own policies with no idea how to move forward.

"...The Palestinian groups are simply too divided to meaningfully reunify under current circumstances. Each of them faces a dead-end for their policies, and no notion of what a good alternative would be. Yet Israel, too, is in a dead end of its own. It's addicted to the status quo, which is unsustainable and, eventually, will almost certainly lead to another brutal confrontation. Israel has no idea what to do with the millions of Palestinians that live under its rule. And those Palestinians don't know what to do to get rid of Israel's rule. The three-way standoff is unprecedented and exceptionally dangerous.

It may be the broader regional changes are required to resolve the conflict. But that really means that Israelis and Palestinians have proven utterly incapable of resolving it themselves, including with the help of the United States. What those regional changes might be, moreover, is itself a source of potential alarm. With all three of the principal actors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stuck in their own traps and unable to see a way forward, they have essentially lost agency and left themselves at the mercy of events they do not, and cannot, control." Hussein Ibish

Hussein Ibish is a columnist at NOW and The National (UAE). He is also a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. He tweets @Ibishblog

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564237-the-three-way-israeli-palestinian-impasse

Palestinian women, one holding up the national flag, push against a metal gate part of the controversial separation barrier being constructed by Israel. (AFP/Abbas Momani)