Reuters World powers trying to revive peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians may be flogging a dead horse and their repeated failure is eroding what credibility they have left as mediators. Some political analysts argue it is now time for them to scale back their ambitions. With faint hope of a deal, would-be peacemakers may inevitably find themselves seeking to manage rather than resolve the generations-old conflict. The latest effort by the Middle East Quartet — a body comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — was arguably a failure before it began. Quartet representatives held separate meetings with the parties in Jerusalem on Wednesday, falling short of their stated aim of bringing them to the same table for talks on how to resume direct negotiations on a permanent peace deal. The mediators said the sides had agreed to make proposals on issues of territory and security within three months. But Palestinian and Israeli analysts saw little hope the latest push could succeed where years of direct talks have failed. “The Quartet is irrelevant because it is stuck on a road which is not leading anywhere,” said Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “I find it laughable, ridiculous,” said George Giacaman, a Palestinian political scientist at Birzeit University in the West Bank. “There have been 20 years of negotiations and they haven't arrived anywhere. It's a mantra they keep repeating. “They have to keep trying or someone will say the emperor is naked,” he said. “They have to keep moving to stay in the running, but I doubt they themselves believe they will be successful.” Established a decade ago, the Quartet has in recent months taken a leading role in attempts to broker new talks. It has stepped into the fray following the failure of US President Barack Obama's administration to resuscitate negotiations. Unsurprisingly, Quartet envoy Tony Blair has run into the same set of problems that bedeviled Obama's efforts. The immediate obstacle is the standoff over Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements on the land where the Palestinians aim to found an independent state. World powers view the settlement as illegal under international law. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants talks now, the Palestinians say he must halt all settlement-building before they come to the table. That is something his government will not do. The dispute points to the deeper problem: what some now see as an unbridgeable gap between the Palestinian quest for independence and an end to occupation, and Israel's attachment to land it deems of strategic importance. Even at the pinnacle of the peace process in 2000, Israelis and Palestinians were unable to agree terms for a permanent solution to their conflict through the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem - territories Israel occupied in a 1967 war. __
