Institutions looking for new recruits often promise, “we offer more than a job, we offer a career.” As British Prime Minister Tony Blair realized before his trip to the Middle East last weekend, the Palestinian-Israeli peace process is a choice career in town, granting restorative powers even to politicians on the slide. But as all solemnly talk about the need for that process to resume, the fact is that neither Israelis nor Palestinians are in a condition to carry through with serious negotiations.

For the foreseeable future, Israeli-Palestinian peace is a mirage sustained by diplomats enamored of process. Somehow, these professionals believe, the problem is one of finding the right dose of concessions, triggering the right mutually reinforcing perceptions of security, so that everything can smoothly fit into place. With each new failure, the calculations start anew, amid an enduring conviction that the lead of Israeli-Palestinian relations can yet be transformed into the gold of permanent amity.

Those on either side of the divide see a solution as relatively easy, on condition that the other side fully embraces their views. But for now, both within the Palestinian territories and Israel, there is no convincing consensus on the contours of a final deal, let alone a consensus that could satisfy the other. Add to that a reality that has been played down by the professional peace peddlers: Both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government lack the domestic public support and confidence to make the sacrifices that would be required in a final settlement.

Much will be made of the fact that Palestinians are preparing to establish a government of national unity, in which Hamas would accept a vague formulation suggesting the movement recognizes Israel. The new government should mean that the spigots of foreign aid are reopened for the Palestinians. It may even bring Hamas closer to accepting a state in the West Bank and Gaza, though just how close remains a big question. But one thing it will not do is make peace talks any easier, because the rubric “national unity” is likely to hand Hamas veto power over conditions that Fatah would be more amenable to accepting. And the Islamist movement, armed with a majority in Parliament, would have ample justification to defend its choices as being in line with Palestinian preferences.

Take a key stumbling block of any Israeli-Palestinian arrangement: the Palestinian right of return. Even at his strongest, Yasser Arafat was never willing to cut a deal that could be interpreted as surrendering the right of refugees to return to their homes inside Israel. Yet for the Israelis any thought of such a return is a non-starter. The weak Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, is not about to challenge Hamas, let alone his own population, by reinterpreting that right in Israel’s favor; nor will Israel be receptive to what it regards as a demographic Trojan horse. In that disagreement alone lies irresolvable deadlock.

On the Israeli side, the recent Lebanon war was devastating to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert not because of Hizbullah’s pyrrhic “victory” amid the shambles of South Lebanon; but because Olmert’s principal electoral platform, the reason he had any legitimacy as head of government, namely his promise of unilateral Israeli withdrawals in the West Bank, collapsed. Hizbullah showed that no matter how high Israel builds its walls, rockets can be fired over them. That’s one reason why Olmert was initially so keen to be vicious in Lebanon, to deter future attacks by the Palestinians and salvage his strategy. In that respect he failed. His plan has been put on hold and it isn’t easy to see how it will soon be revived.

So, with the Palestinian and Israeli governments unable to move very much forward on peace, is continued diplomacy advisable? The knee-jerk answer has been yes. But a good case can be made that because mediation is pointless today, it would be better to let the conflict fester until Israelis and Palestinians have no choice but to begin negotiations that do work. Diplomacy may actually end up killing the patient, not saving him.

As the Camp David meeting between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in July 2000 showed, any effort to force a solution on parties not ripe for it can lead to worse outcomes. At the time, Arafat was unhappy with Barak’s effort to go to a final settlement before the Israelis had fulfilled several intermediate commitments to the Palestinians. Arafat felt, legitimately, that he was being railroaded, and his reaction was to be more rigid at the summit and in subsequent diplomatic endeavors than was good for the Palestinians. By the end, he thought he could improve his hand by launching the intifada, and lost everything.

Similarly, Barak was never secure enough about domestic Israeli backing for a final deal to fulfill the interim promises Israel had made to the Palestinians. Yet, like a gambler, he conceived of Camp David as a double-or-nothing moment. A radical final package deal, he thought, could bring Israelis around, regardless of their initial doubts. This might have worked with his countrymen, but Barak never considered whether Palestinian leaders or society would go along. He, too, ended up losing everything.

For now, keeping alive the illusion of a peace process might only invite similar haste, as diplomats at some stage try to show something for their efforts, while also keeping expectations unrealistically high of an encouraging outcome. With such expectations will come sharper frustration, particularly on the Palestinian side. Yet on a daily basis it’s being made plain that the minimal Palestinian conditions for an acceptable settlement are miles away from the minimal Israeli ones.

The diplomats would respond that only perseverance can eventually bring Palestinians and Israelis together. But what is more likely to bring them together is the parties’ being denied a peace process, so that they can face alone the starkness of their choices. When both see that they must deal with each other rather than through a battery of professional illusionists, negotiations might have a better chance of working. Peacemaking would then turn into just a job, but for once it might be a job well done.

Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.

Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star