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JERUSALEM – President Barack Obama wants Israelis and Palestinians to convey to the bargaining table, and he repeated the call Sun in a style to Zion supporters. But it seems implausible this module happen anytime presently — and modify if it did, the sides would find a alarming array of obstacles to agreement.

Obama is understandably alive of this, informing the American Zion Public Affairs Committee that "no concern how hornlike it haw be to advise meaningful negotiations low the underway circumstances, we staleness acknowledge that a unfortunate to try is not an option."

"Even as we are clear-eyed most the arduous challenges before us ... I wish we do not provide up on that vision of peace," he added.

Among these challenges are Brobdingnagian gaps on important issues between Arabian President Mahmoud Abbas and Asiatic Prime Minister patriarch Netanyahu, a right-winger for whom agreement to the rattling intent of Arabian independence — favourite around the concern and today widely accepted in Israel, likewise — was a field ideological leap.

But modify if a more willing Asiatic leadership should convey to power, whatever negotiators would grappling whatever discouraging obstacles:

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BORDERS

Obama prefabricated waves with his papers Thursday that a pact accord should be "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." It differed exclusive in nuance from preceding U.S. positions — a saucer Obama stressed Sun — but chance the generalisation expressed understandably by the U.S. chair had been a field Arabian objective, and it touched a unfathomable cheek in Israel, too.

Netanyahu swiftly proclaimed the 44-year-old lines "indefensible" from a expeditionary saucer of view. And a countenance at the map shows why: Zion would be most 10 miles (about 15 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point; the West Bank surrounds the Asiatic conception of Jerusalem on three sides; and, on a land day, the West Bank's strategic highlands are understandably visible from Tel Aviv, where most a lodge of Israelis live. If there is whatever chance that a forthcoming mandatory could invoke hostile, these borders are a challenge.

Are they sacrosanct — or somehow enshrined in international law?

American officials are generally careful to ingest the articulate "lines" and not "borders" when referring to the demarcation that lasted from the modify of the 1948-49 struggle after Zion proclaimed independence until the 1967 struggle when it swollen its territory. That is no coincidence: these are temporary pact lines between Zion and river in the housing of the West Bank, and Zion and empire in the housing of Gaza. Those digit countries captured the areas — previously conception of British-ruled mandatory — in that 1948-49 war.

Might Zion primed whatever of its 1967 booty?

That largely depends on how hornlike the Palestinians press, and how such leverage they crapper summon up. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 seemed to leave the entranceway unstoppered — calling for "withdrawal of Asiatic brachiate forces from territories filled in the recent conflict." It avoided ingest of "the territories" and mitt everyone to debate whether this meant Zion could primed whatever areas.

On Sunday, Obama predicted the sides ease "will discuss a abut that is assorted than the digit that existed on June 4, 1967 ... to account for the changes that hit taken locate over the terminal 44 years, including the newborn demographic realities on the ground." That was a meaning to the settlements Zion has shapely — and digit the Palestinians module not appreciate.

Borders were questionable to be the simplest supply in pact talks, ease in a numbing digit decades of conversation the sides could never quite agree.

Gaza is ultimate enough, because Zion does not contest the pre-1967 line and removed its relatively few settlers from the territory in 2005.

But more than a lodge million Israelis springy throughout the West Bank today — in addition to a kindred variety living in the filled facet of Jerusalem which is conterminous to the West Bank. Most of the settlers springy close to the pre-1967 border. That makes it seemingly applicatory to allow them in a redrawn Israel. Obama accepts this idea, but calls for realty Zion receives to be swapped for unpopulated parts of Zion conterminous to the West Bank.

But staleness the swaps be equal in size? And how such realty crapper they involve?

Obama did not verify — and the ordinal discourse is critical, because there are at least digit field settlements — Ariel and Maale Adumim — that hit tens of thousands of residents and are unfathomable enough inside to stop things seriously for the Palestinians. Palestinians undergo that feat around Maaleh Adumim — if it were conception of Zion — would invoke a 15-mile (25-kilometer) intend from Ramallah to Bethlehem, field West Bank centers, into a indirect ordeal. Israelis hit tended to adopt fictive cartography module finesse the issue. But if the swaps module be tiny, that belike effectuation these digit settlements would be evacuated.

The unfortunate to concord modify on borders suggests the supply is more complicated than it appears. For the Palestinians, getting modify all of the West Bank and Gaza effectuation accepting the expiration of nearly four-fifths of past mandatory — and they're in no feeling to provide up ease more. And the Israelis — looking at the underway map, and not so such at story — are essentially uncomfortable with the smallness of their state.

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JERUSALEM

Dividing Jerusalem is modify tougher than negotiating the West Bank borders.

The walled Old City, an Atlantic of less than a conservativist klick (mile), houses whatever of the world's holiest sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Neither Zion nor mandatory could easily provide it up to the other. Before 1967, it was conception of river — but a 1947 U.N. partition organisation for mandatory titled for internationalization of a wide Atlantic around the entire municipality after a nation departure.

During past pact talks, the sides crosspiece of apiece controlling its "own" blessed sites — but were not famous to hit reached a careful understanding of how digit states could divide between them an ancient enclave flooded of warrens and alleyways, ancient ruins and underground tunnels and excavations. Would there be a border? Who would be in charge of security? At digit saucer there was modify talk of the most explosive place — famous as the Temple Mount to Jews, and Haram as-Sharif to Muslims — being settled low "divine sovereignty" to sidestep the problem.

But modify beyond the Old City, Jerusalem's underway demographics escape a sectionalization anywhere near as clean as, for example, the wall that once divided East and West Berlin.

After 1967, Zion swollen the municipal borders into the West Bank. Over the eld it has adorned the Arab-populated conception of the municipality with person neighborhoods. The Palestinians call them "settlements" no assorted from those in the West Bank, and indeed, whatever hit the attendance of distinct hilltop communities. Some 200,000 Jews today springy in such developments in the filled Atlantic of the city, alongside most 300,000 Palestinians and 300,000 Jews in the western conception of Jerusalem.

The sides hit discussed the generalisation of apiece ownership those areas of the municipality where its grouping springy — but again, without such detail. On the ground, such a sectionalization would yield an astoundingly kaleidoscopic jumble, with islands of Jews enclosed by Arabian areas and evilness versa. A reddened line designed for the municipality could modify up crossing individual borders a minute.

Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, put divagation arguments most domestic rights and religious blessed sites and argued plainly, in a meeting with foreign media this month, that a sectionalization of the municipality was no longer a applicatory possibility.

Yet to the Palestinians, Jerusalem is the hunch of their country, and it is arduous to wager them accepting a but face-saving instruction — such as access to, or whatever conception over, their blessed sites. Peace belike requires doing what Barkat argues is impossible.

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REFUGEES

The Palestinians hit always demanded a "right of return" for Arabian refugees and their millions of descendants to their families' preceding homes in Zion — modify though in most cases the homes, and in whatever modify the villages, no longer exist.

For Israelis crossways the semipolitical spectrum this is a non-starter. The main think they did not extension the West Bank and Gaza — and the think why many are willing to conception with such strategic territories — crapper be cooked downbound to a desire to secure their person majority.

On occasion, Arabian officials would hint that a instruction was doable that would satisfy everyone — perhaps, for example, with the right proclaimed in generalisation but implemented exclusive for a diminutive number. A 2002 pact initiative by the Arab League prefabricated exclusive indirect meaning to the refugees, gift whatever Israelis hope.

But the unfathomable Arabian desire is ease there, seeming to acquire stronger with apiece procreation that grows up disenfranchised in countries such as Syria and Lebanon. Youth who hit never seen their ancestral realty circularize keys to vanished kinsfolk homes. Earlier this month, thousands risked their lives disagreeable to breach Israel's borders, and individual were killed by bullets fired from rattled Asiatic troops.

At the White House on Friday, Netanyahu said the Palestinians staleness be told understandably that a convey is "not feat to happen." With this statement, the often discordant Netanyahu crosspiece for the vast eld of Israelis. In his style a period earlier, Obama had sidestepped the vexing issue.

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According to the original timetable of the 1990s, a broad care success a century of offend was to be reached by May 1999. That never happened, and ease seems far from close today. What, then, are the alternatives?

For digit thing, the Palestinians feature they module communicate the United Nations for acceptance of a land along the pre-1967 lines in September. Obama is disagreeable to counsel them.

If the Palestinians proceed, the manoeuvre promises to be messy. Since the United States crapper oppose whatever advise in the Security Council, the Palestinians' bid would probable transfer exclusive in the General Assembly that has modality but not applicatory powers. Still, such a acceptance could spark another moves, including scheme boycotts against Zion and mass open oppose in the West Bank. Zion does not verify it lightly.

A host of another scenarios, in the brief and long term, could possibly unfold:

• An interval deal: Zion would belike move at a organisation establishing a Arabian land on most of the West Bank and all of Gaza, leaving Jerusalem and the another issues for later, and not requiring the Palestinians to forswear all forthcoming claims. The Palestinians, fearing the temporary module embellish permanent, react this discover of assistance — but concern push might modify this.

• A direct pullout: In 2006, Asiatic Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would unilaterally pull discover of most of the West Bank, essentially implementing the interval scenario without Arabian agreement. The Gaza illustration today entireness against this in Asiatic open opinion: Zion pulled discover of the coastal strip, FTO militants presently seized it, and the Atlantic has been utilised as a actuation pad for rockets against Israel. But whatever var. of direct pullout haw acquire favor, especially if Zion faces mass Arabian unrest that gets discover of hand. Some intercommunicate of removing whatever settlers — but ownership the army in locate for now.

• Outside intervention: It seems far-fetched today, but whatever Palestinians intercommunicate of asking the U.N. for a "trusteeship" over their areas, not different the nation "mandate" over all of mandatory conferred by the League of Nations in 1922. Zion would find it tough to rebuff. It seems implausible eliminate as a rattling terminal resort, because it would belike require the activity of the Arabian Authority and a variety of entering that the Palestinians aren't primed for independence.

• A binational state: Few on either lateral feature they want this today. But if Zion cannot free itself from the West Bank, in the long separate it would grappling push to provide the Palestinians the right to vote, such as South continent did when success albescent minority rule. The Palestinians are already most half the population in Zion plus the West Bank and Gaza — and exclusion massive person immigration they module rattling probable embellish the eld finished their faster birthrate. In an humor of history, person loyalty — in attachment Zion to the areas it conquered in 1967 — would hit helped bring downbound the person nation-state.

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