Israeli-Palestinian peace talks: Extremist forces threaten prospects

Since taking office, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has made every effort to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and he pushed both sides to restart the peace process in July 2013. Final settlement was planned to be reached within 9 months. To prevent internal and external interference, the talks took place in secret. The international community hopes that a breakthrough will be achieved in 2014.

In promoting the resumption of talks between Palestine and Israel, America's concern is to defuse the increasingly urgent and intractable Syrian crisis, and the Iran nuclear issue. It needs to make use of the peace talks to create an impression of influence, and offset Russia's growing regional leverage.

However, the U.S. moves to ease relations with Iran has triggered Israeli's psychological defenses and provoked a strong response from Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are now in crisis and facing possible collapse. Confined to the current bilateral relations, even if Palestine and Israel reach an agreement in the future, it is likely to be doomed to failure due to opposition from internal extremist forces.

From the revolution of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is gradually losing its fundamental ground to solve.

First, Israel has become a nation of solid power and strength after several wars. Its real concern is the country's Jewish property and security issues. It intends to deepen ties with the Palestinians in economic and security fields, while weakening the latter's state functions.

Second, after Hamas seized the Gaza strip by force, Palestine found itself split before it had even come into existence as a state. The two-state solution lost its original meaning.

Lastly, in the current situation - that of a serious imbalance in power between two sides and an absence of impetus towards peace - if talks are to progress, strong and durable external forces are a necessary precondition. But in recent years the U.S. has been more concerned with implementing its Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy than with its role as a Middle East peace broker, so Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been gradually marginalized.